Full text of "India Today"

See other formats

INDIA TO-DAY

R. PALME DUTT

LONDON

VICTOR GOLLANCZ LTD
1940

THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER

UPENDRA KRISHNA DUTT

Bom, Calcutta, India, October vj, 1857
Died, Leatherhead, England, May is, iggg

Who taught me the beginnings
of political understanding — to love the
Indian people and all peoples
struggling for freedom

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. INDIA IN THE WAR n

1 The Outbreak of War and India 12

2 India as the Pivot of Modern Imperialism 1 7

3 The Awakening of India 21

PART I

India as it Is and as it Might Be

II. INDIA’S PROBLEM 27

1 The Paradox of India 27

2 The “ Silent Censorship ” Over India 32

3 Mythologies and Realities 36

III. THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF

INDIA 39

1 The Wealth of India 39

2 The Poverty of India 46

3 Over-Population Fallacies 60

IV. A CONTRAST OF TWO WORLDS 73

1 Two Decades of Socialism and

Imperialism 74

2 The Experience of the Central Asian

Republics 82

PART II

British Rule in India

V. THE SECRET OF INDIAN POVERTY

1 Marx on India

2 The Shattering of the Indian Village

Economy

3 The Destructive Role of British Rule in

India

4 The “ Regenerating ” Role of British

Rule in India
7

102

CONTENTS

PAGE

VI. BRITISH RULE IN INDIA— THE OLD

BASIS 105

1 The Plunder of India 106

2 India and the Industrial Revolution 116

3 Industrial Devastation 124

VII. MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 133

1 The Transition to Finance-Capital 135

2 Finance-Capital and India 143

3 The Question of Industrialisation 149

4 Setbacks to Industrialisation 156

5 The Balance-Sheet of Twenty Years 163

6 The Stranglehold of Finance-Capital 167

7 Finance-Capital and the New Con¬

stitution 1 73

8 The Outcome of Imperialism in India 176

PART III

The Basic Problem of India —

The Agrarian Problem

VIII. THE CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE 181

1 The Over-pressure on Agriculture 183

2 Consequences of the Over-pressure on

Agriculture 1 88

3 Stagnation and Deterioration of Agri¬

culture 190

IX. BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY 20 1

1 The Land Monopoly 202

2 Transformation of the Land System 207

3 Creation of Landlordism 209

4 Impoverishment of the Peasantry 215

5 The Burden of Debt 224

6 The Triple Burden 231

X. TOWARDS AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 234

1 Growth of the Agrarian Crisis 234

2 The Necessity of the Agrarian Revo¬

lution 238

3 Failure of Government Reform Policies 241

4 Growth of the Peasant Movement 246

CONTENTS

PART IV

• t

The Indian People in Movement

CHAP. PAGS

XI. THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 253

1 Is There a People of India ? 253

2 Questions of Caste, Religion and

Language 260

3 Beginnings of Indian Nationalism 267

4 Rise of the National Congress 277

XII. THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL

STRUGGLE 285

1 The First Great Wave of Struggle 1905-

1910 286

2' The Second Great Wave of Struggle

1919-1922 298

3 The Third Great Wave of Struggle

1930-1934 3i8

XIII. RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 345

1 Growth of the Industrial Working Class 346

2 Conditions of the Working Class 350

3 Formation of the Labour Movement 364

4 Political Awakening 371

5 The Meerut Trial 376

6 The Modern Period 381

7 Problems of the Working-Class Move¬

ment 384

PART V

The Battleground in India To-day

XIV. THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA 389

1 The Princes 39 1

2 Communal Divisions 404

XV. THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW

CONSTITUTION 423

1 Imperialism and Self-Government 424

2 Pre-1917 Reform Policy 426

3 The Question of Dominion Status 43 1

4 The New Constitution of 1935 440

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

XVI. THE NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE

EVE OF THE WAR 455

1 The New Awakening 455

2 The Election Victory of 1937 456

3 Congress Provincial Ministries 463

4 The Federal Constitution and Developing

Crisis 470

XVII. INDIA IN WORLD POLITICS 475

1 The Strategic Significance of India for

British World Policy 476

2 The Significance of India for British

Internal Politics 481

3 India and World Peace 485

PART VI
Conclusions

XVIII. THE FUTURE 494

1 The Last Days of British Rule 494

2 What Kind of Free India? 509

3 Reconstruction, Industrialisation and

Socialism 518

4 The Programme of the National Front 529

Chapter I : INDIA IN THE WAR

“ When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and
to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal situation to
which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect
of the opinions.of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to .the separation.” — American Declaration of Independence.

The war has precipitated a struggle in India which was
already gathering on the eve of its outbreak.

Since the outbreak of the war a thick veil of censorship,
exceeding that which exists even in peace-time, has cut off
India from the rest of the world. Through this veil it is never¬
theless clear that the crisis which is now developing far exceeds
that which developed with the war of 1914.

The first world war of 1914-18 and the revolutionary wave
which swept over the world in its train inaugurated an era of
great changes in India, as in all colonial countries. Powerful
mass struggles shook India to the foundation in 1919-22, and
again with even greater intensity (after the world economic
crisis, which affected India most severely) in 1930 and 1932.
The constitutional concessions which resulted in the formation
of Provincial Ministries of the National Congress in 1937 in
eight of the eleven provinces did not stem this rising unrest,
but rather gave it new impetus. The war found India already
in the ferment of a sharpening struggle for independence
against the Federal Constitution which the British Government
was preparing to impose.

This development of an intervening generation underlies
the difference between the reaction of India to the present
war and to that of 1914.

Whereas in the war of 1914 not only the Princes and
reactionaries — the puppets of British rule — but also the best-
known upper leaders of the national movement, at first rallied
to the support of the British Empire, and the deep mass
discontent only slowly matured over a period of years, in the
very first weeks of the war in 1939 the conflict was open
between the Indian national movement and the British
Government.

INDIA IN THE WAR

i. The Outbreak of War and India

It is too early to attempt any close estimate of the effects
which the war is bringing to the situation in India. The
question of India has been brought to the forefront of world
politics more sharply than ever before. At the same time
the situation within India is greatly sharpened.

A war dictatorship has been imposed. Within a few hours
of the declaration of war, the Viceroy, without any consultation
with the representatives of the Indian people, proclaimed India
as a belligerent. A Government of India Amending Act
was hurried through the British Parliament in eleven minutes,
empowering the Viceroy to over-ride the working of the
Constitution also in respect of Provincial Autonomy. The
Defence of India Ordinance of September 3, 1939, established
the power of the Central Government to rule by decree, to
promulgate “ such rules as appear to it to be necessary for
securing the defence of British India, public safety, main¬
tenance of public order, or the efficient prosecution of the
war, or for maintaining supplies and services essential to the
life of the community ”, to prohibit meetings and other forms
of propaganda, and to arrest without warrant, and imposed
! penalties for breaches of regulations to include death or
transportation for life.

On September 1 1 the Viceroy read the King’s Message to
India :

“ In these days, when the whole of civilisation is threat¬
ened, the widespread attachment of India to the cause in
which we have taken up arms has been a source of deep
satisfaction to me. ... I am confident that in the struggle
upon which I and my peoples have now entered we can
count upon sympathy and support from every quarter
of the Indian Community in the face of the common
danger.”

In the same address the Viceroy announced the suspension
of the preparations for Federation. Autocratic government
was to continue in India, without any constitutional fig-leaf
and reinforced by the most far-reaching Extraordinary
Powers. Once again, as a quarter of a century before, the
Indian people were to be dragged at the heels of the British

INDIA IN THE WAR

Government into a war in whose making they had had no
choice, and in regard to which they had continuously protested
at the policy which had made it inevitable.

Events were soon to show the hollowness of the confident
optimism of the King’s Message.

On September 14 the Working Committee of the Indian
National Congress issued its statement on the war. The
Working Committee declared its divergence from the policy
of the British Government:

“ As a first step to dissociate themselves from this policy
of the British Government, the Committee called upon the
Congress members of the Central Legislative Assembly to
refrain from attending the next session. Since then the
British Government have declared India as a belligerent
country, promulgated Ordinances, passed the Government
of India Act Amending Bill, and taken over far reaching
measures which affect the Indian people vitally, and cir¬
cumscribe and limit the powers and activities of the pro¬
vincial governments. This has been done without the con¬
sent of the Indian people whose declared wishes in such
matters have been deliberately ignored by the British
Government. The Working Committee must take the
gravest view of these developments.”

With reference to the claim of the British Government to
be fighting for the cause of democracy, the National Congress
declared :

“ The Committee are aware that the Governments of
Great Britain and France have declared that they are
fighting for democracy and freedom and to put an end to
aggression. But the history of the recent past is full of
examples showing the constant divergences between the
spoken word, the ideals proclaimed, and the real motives
and objectives. During the war of 1914-18, the declared
war aims were preservation of democracy, self-determina¬
tion, and the freedom of small nations, and yet the very
Governments which solemnly proclaimed these aims
entered into secret treaties embodying imperialist designs
for the carving up of the Ottoman Empire. While stating
that they did not want any acquisition of territory, the

INDIA IN THE WAR

victorious Powers added largely to their colonial domains.
The present European war itself signifies the abject failure
of the Treaty of Versailles and of its makers, who broke
their pledged word and imposed an imperialist peace on
the defeated nations.”

The leadership of the National Congress laid down the claim :

“ The Indian people must have the right of self-deter¬
mination by framing their own constitution through a Con¬
stituent Assembly without external interference, and must
guide their own policy.”

Accordingly the National Congress posed the direct challenge
to the British Government :

“ The Working Committee therefore invites the British
Government to declare in unequivocal terms what their
war aims are in regard to democracy and imperialism and
the new order that is envisaged, in particular, how these
aims are going to apply to India and to be given effect to
in the present. Do they include the elimination of im¬
perialism and the treatment of India as a free nation whose
policy will be guided in accordance with the wishes of her
people? ”

To this direct question of the National Congress the British
Government issued a reply which was in fact a negative.
Under cover of a repetition of the old promises of some
future concession of “ Dominion Status ” at an unknown date
(promises which had been offered under similar conditions in
the last war twenty-two years ago, and which are still unful¬
filled), the British Government proposed for its immediate
programme a “ Consultative Committee ” of Indian puppets
to assist the Viceroy in holding India in subjection and
promoting the prosecution of the war.

This preliminary diplomatic clash between the leadership
of the National Congress and the British Government was
only the first symptom of the deeper struggle that was pre¬
paring. While the leadership of the Congress was engaged
in these lengthy diplomatic interchanges with the Viceroy, the
masses were already entering into movement. On October 2,
90,000 Bombay workers carried out a one-day political strike
against the war and the repressive measures of imperialism.

INDIA IN THE WAR

This was the first mass strike against the war in any of the
countries involved in the war. The resolution unanimously
passed at the mass meeting on the Kamgar Maidan at the
close of the strike proclaimed :

“ This fneeting declares its solidarity with the inter¬
national working class and the peoples of the world, who
are being dragged into the most destructive war by the
imperialist powers. The meeting regards the present war
as a challenge to the international solidarity of the working
class and declares that it is the task of the workers and
people of the different countries to defeat this imperialist
conspiracy against humanity.”

In this resolution of the Bombay millhands the struggle of
the Indian working people found expression as a part of the
struggle of the international working class against imperialism.

These preliminary clashes have thrown into sharp light
the growing conflict in India. Whatever attempts at com¬
promise may still be made to veil the conflict or to find some
common ground between the propertied interests on both
sides which fear the deeper issues behind the conflict, there
can be no hiding the basic character of the struggle which
is now opening and which the war has only accelerated.
The challenge of the Indian people to the British Empire is
a challenge to the whole system of imperialism.

India’s demand for freedom raises in its sharpest form the
quesdon of the modern colonial system, which is an integral
part of modern imperialism and at the root of the issues of
imperialist war. The Indian people, in struggling for their
rights, are struggling for the rights of all the colonial peoples.
The subjection of India is the foundation-stone of the modern
colonial system. The removal of this foundation-stone by
the liberation of India will strike a decisive blow at the whole
colonial system, which is inseparably bound up with modern
capitalist society.

Herein lies the profound world significance of India’s
struggle at the present day. What is here involved is no mere
constitutional question, set within the framework of the
British Empire, as current discussion often seeks to imply.
Nothing creates greater confusion or more impenetrable

INDIA IN THE WAR

barriers of misunderstanding than the attempt to treat the
Indian question as some problem of devising elaborate con¬
stitutional structures, whose only purpose in practice is to
conceal the real issue. The challenge of the Indian people
to imperialism is in its simplest sense a claim of one-sixth
of humanity to freedom from foreign domination. But this
demand for freedom inevitably strikes deeper than the claim
to formal political independence in which it finds its
immediate expression. It is at root a challenge to a deeply
entrenched system of exploitation, which has its centrte in
the City of London, but which is closely bound up with a
subordinate system of privilege and exploitation within India.
The one cannot be touched without the other.

The Indian question is essentially a social question. The
immediate aim of the struggle of the Indian people is national
liberation, the conquest of national independence and the
democratic right of self-government. But this aim represents
the first stage of a deeper social struggle, of a maturing social
revolution within India. The struggle of the Indian people
is a struggle of hundreds of millions of people, who are
oppressed and exploited at the lowest level of human exist¬
ence, for freedom and the means of life, for national, political
and social freedom. The national and social issues are closely
intertwined ; and the understanding of this inter-connection
is the key to the understanding of the Indian situation.

The Indian people, through the profound inner social con¬
flicts and problems which are being brought to the front in
the gathering crisis, stand before some of the most basic
revolutionary tasks of any section of humanity. The deeper
problems of the backwardness of India, of the task to clear
away the dirt and filth of ages of subjection and arrested
development and conservative social custom, will not reach
their solution in the moment of national liberation, but will
only then reach their full amplitude and the first approach
to the conditions for their solution. By the resolution of
these conflicts and problems, as the working masses of India
advance to consciousness and to control of their own destiny,
by the bringing forward of India from its present economic
and cultural backwardness to the level of the most advanced
nations, the people of India is marked out to play a foremost
role in the future advance to world socialism and the final

INDIA IN THE WAR 17

overcoming of the distinctions between East and West, between
advanced and backward nations.

2. India as the Pivot of Modern Imperialism

If we look at the map of the modern Empires, it is easy to
see how India is the central region of imperialist domination.

Around the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean, with India
at the commanding centre, stretches the Persian Gulf, the
new Middle Eastern Empire and Arabia on the west; then
the Red Sea and Egypt, and all Africa to the south-west;
to the east, Burma, the Malay States and the East Indies;
to the south-east, Australia ; and through the gates of Singa¬
pore, as well as more recently through the new Burma-
Yunnan road, the route to China.

With the impenetrable mountain barriers to the north
(open only to invasion on the north-west) , and with command
of the sea, India constitutes the central fortress and base for
the domination of this whole region, as well as itself com¬
prising the richest source of wealth and exploitation.

The European colonising Powers all directed their first
efforts towards India and the wealth of India ; they stumbled
across America and the “ West Indies ” in the course of
searching for the new sea route to India ; it was only in the
later period that they extended their expansion to Africa,
Australia, China, and the rest of Asia.

The conquest of India by Western civilisation has con¬
stituted one of the main pillars of capitalist development in
Europe, of British world supremacy, and of the whole struc¬
ture of modern imperialism. For two centuries the history
of Europe has been built up, to a greater extent than is
always recognised, on the basis of the domination of India.
Behind the successive struggles of Britain with Spain and
Portugal, with Holland, with France, with Russia and with
Germany may be traced the issue of the route to India and
the domination of India. Behind the inner course of politics
in England, and directly under-propping the whole social
and political structure laboriously and precariously built up
in England, may be traced the role of this same domination.

If we examine the areas and populations of the principal
modern Empires at the present day, the significance of
India stands out no less clearly. A tabular presentation of

INDIA IN THE WAR

the leading colonial Empires in 1938 would reveal the
following picture :

AREA AND POPULATION OF THE MODERN
COLONIAL EMPIRES

(statistics based on Statesman's Yearbook, 1938)

Home.

Colonial.

Total.

Area

Population

Area

Population

Area

Population

British Empire .
French Empire .
Japanese Empire1
Dutch Empire .
United States
Empire * .

Belgian Empire .
Italian Empire *
Portuguese Em¬
pire . .

(thousand
sq. miles).
94-6
212

147

12*6

2,973

n-7

119

(millions).
46- 1
419
693

8-6

1292

8-3

43-5

6-8

(thousand
sq. miles).
13,261
4,617
616
790

712

902

i,575

810

(millions) .

454-6

65-0

62-6

6i-o

142

IO-I

100

9-1

(thousand
sq. miles).

13.356

4.829

763

802

3.685

914

1,694

845

(millions).

501

107

132

143

Total .

3.604-9

353-7

23.283

686-6

26,888

1,041

of which

India
per cent.

1,809

7-7%

375

54'6%

1 Including Manchuria (503 thousand square miles and 34-2 millions population).

* Including Alaska (586 thousand square miles and 55,000 population), and the Philippines
(114 thousand square miles and i2'i millions population) ; the latter are due by the Act of
1934 to reach independence in 1944.

1 Including Abyssinia (657 thousand square miles and 7-6 millions population).

These official statistics are inevitably misleading. The
British Empire includes Canada, Australia, New Zealand
and Eire, with 4 million square miles area and 25 millions
population, which are to a great extent independent, and
South Africa, with half a million square miles and 1 o millions
population, which is independent in respect of the White
population (2 millions:) and colonial in respect of the re¬
mainder; but does not include such States as Egypt an
Iraq, which are formally “ independent ”, but in reality
attached to the Empire. Similarly the French Empire does
not include Morocco, which is formally “ independent ”.
Manchuria and Abyssinia have been included, although their
conquest is still precarious and incomplete, since we are con¬
cerned here, not with questions of right, but only with the
official statistics of each Empire as given by its Government.
The many grades of partial dependence (e.g., in South
America) and semi-colonial status, although of great im-

INDIA IN THE WAR 19

portance for real politics, naturally do not come within the
purview of these official statistics.

Nevertheless, the broad outlines sufficiently enable the
significance of India and of the population of India in the
total of the colonial populations to be seen.

The area of India is 1,808,679 square miles, or fifteen times
the area of the British Isles and twenty times the area of
Great Britain. The population of India was 353 millions in
the last 1931 census. Since then the latest official estimate in
the Public Health Report of the Government of India for
1935 placed the total in that year at over 370 millions, with the
expectation of exceeding 400 millions by 1941, or an average
annual increase of close on 5 millions. This would give a
present total for 1939 of something like 390 millions (the
administrative separation of Burma since 1937 would reduce
this total by 13 millions, leaving 375 to 380 millions for the
probable total of India proper to-day). For purposes of
comparison with the other figures in the table above, which
range mainly about the year 1936-37, we may take the
generally accepted total of 370 millions for this date.

The 370 millions of India constitute three-quarters of the
total population of the British Empire, four-fifths of the over¬
seas population of the British Empire, and nearly nine-tenths
of the subject colonial population of the British Empire.

The Indian population subject to British rule is more than
half the total colonial population of the world, and more than
one and a half times the combined colonial populations of the
French, Japanese, Dutch, American, Belgian, Italian and Portu¬
guese Empires — that is, of the remaining colonial Empires.

India is not only far and away the largest of the direct
colonial possessions of imperialism, overwhelmingly out¬
numbering all the remainder put together: it is also the
oldest, the longest dominated and exploited over many
generations, and therefore the most complete demonstration
of the outcome of the colonial system.

European capitalist penetration into India began with the
Portuguese establishment of their factory at Calicut in 1500
and their conquest of Goa in 1 506, more than four centuries
ago. The British East India Company was founded in 1600,
the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and the French
Compagnie des Indes in 1664. British direct territorial rule

INDIA IN THE WAR

in India, beyond the trading settlements which were already
the initial outposts of conquest, dates from the middle of the
eighteenth century. The traditional starting-point from the
Battle of Plassey in 1757 gives over one hundred and eighty
years of British rule in India.

India is the pivot of the British Empire. As the last out¬
standing Viceroy of still expanding imperialism in India,
Lord Curzon, wrote in 1894 (before his Viceroyalty) :

“Just as De Tocqueville remarked that the conquest and
government of India are really the achievements which
have given to England her place in the opinion of the world,
so it is the prestige and the wealth arising from her Asiatic
position that are the foundation stones of the British Empire.
There, in the heart of the old Asian continent, she sits
upon the throne that has always ruled the East. Her
sceptre is outstretched over land and sea. ‘ God-like
she ‘ grasps the triple fork, and, king-like, wears the crown V
(Hon. G. N. Curzon, “ Problems of the Far East ”,
1894, p. 419.)

Four years later, in 1898, this intoxicated panegyrist of
imperialism was sounding a new note :

“ India is the pivot of our Empire. ... If the Empire
loses any other part of its Dominion we can survive, but if
we lose India the sun of our Empire will have set.”

In this often-quoted rhetorical flight, the forebodings of the
approaching end were already beginning to make themselves
felt.

The economic and financial significance of India to Britain,
and to the whole development and structure of British
capitalism, has been very great throughout the historical
record. It is now weakening, but is still considerable.
The old monopoly of the Indian market, reaching to over
four-fifths in the nineteenth century and to two-thirds even
on the eve of the war of 1914, has now vanished never to
return. Since 1929 India is no longer the largest single market
for British goods, and has fallen to third place in 1938. But
the lion’s share of Indian trade, of a nation advancing to
400 millions, is still in British hands (nearly one-third of Indian
imports and over one-third of Indian exports). The volume

INDIA IN THE WAR

of British capital holdings in India is estimated at £1,000
million (estimate of the Associated Chambers of Commerce
in India in 1933), or one quarter of the total of British overseas
capital investments. The value of the annual tribute drawn
from India to Britain, in one form or another, has been
estimated at £150 million (calculation based on the year
1921-22, in Shah and Khambata, “Wealth and Taxable
Capacity of India ”, p. 234), or more than the total of the
entire Indian Budget at the same date, and equivalent to
over £3 a year per head of the population in Britain, or nearly
£i,yoo a year for every supertax-payer in Britain at the time
of the estimate.

No less important is the strategic significance of India to
British imperialism, both as the basis from which the further
expansion of the Empire has been in great part undertaken,
the exchequer and source of troops for innumerable overseas
wars and expeditions, and also as the centre-point to which
strategic calculations (control of the Mediterranean, the Suez
Canal and the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Middle
Eastern Empire, and Singapore) have been continuously
directed.

This strategic significance is further demonstrated in the
present war.

3. The Awakening of India

The domination of India has long been the prize of rival
imperialist Powers. The domination still continues ; the
consequent rivalries still continue ; but to-day something new
is happening which is putting a term to this situation.

India is awakening. India, for thousands of years the prey
of successive waves of conquerors, is awakening to independent
existence as a united people with their own role to play in the
world. This awakening has leapt forward in our lifetime.
In the last twenty years a new India has emerged. To-day
India’s advance to freedom is widely recognised as approach¬
ing victory in the near future. But the freeing of India
removes the main basis of modern imperialist domination of
subject peoples.

This new awakening India has no intention to be either the
victim of the existing imperialist rulers or the prey of rival
imperialist Powers. As the recent declarations of the national

)

INDIA IN THE WAR

movement have made clear, the awakening Indian people is
determined to take its equal place with the peoples of the world
on the side of freedom and world peace, as part of a co¬
operative world order. The ideas of socialism are spreading
in India. India’s advance is heralding a great accession of
strength to the forces of the peoples all over the world against
the tide of reaction.

The significance of India’s struggle stands out no less sharply
in relation to the internal situation in India. For in a very real
sense, also if we examine the internal situation, India is a focus
of all the conflicts and problems of the modern world situation.

Here, amid the ruins of an old historic civilisation, which
has been submerged and has stagnated under the crushing
weight of modern conquerors, the lowest levels of primitive
economy, poverty and servitude exist alongside the most
advanced forms of imperialist domination exercised by the
still most powerful Empire of modern times. The wealth and
power, no less than the strategic strength of the British Empire
have been in great part built on the domination and plunder
of India. Over the continuance of this domination history
has written a question-mark; and this question-mark has
forced itself on the attention of the imperialist rulers them¬
selves, who are to-day devoting every effort to adapt them¬
selves to inevitable changes, to harmonise the contradictions
and to prolong their weakening hold under new forms.

British imperialist policy, the most skilful, flexible and
experienced expression of imperialist policy, is endeavouring
by every means and resource, combining coercion with
reforms, to adapt itself to the new situation, and to maintain
the reality of its power and exploitation, while making far-
reaching concessions in form. The liberal imperialist and
reformist theories of the possibility of the gradual and peaceful
advance and progress of a colonial people to self-government
and freedom within imperialism are here being brought to
the test of practice. The British rulers hold out the promise
of a future (undated) advance to responsible self-government
within the British Empire. The new Constitution enacted in
1935 is regarded by liberal supporters of imperialism as a
serious step in this direction. From the Indian standpoint
the new Constitution, while making certain important
secondary concessions in the provincial sphere, in its central

INDIA IN THE WAR

framework is only designed to rivet the more firmly the British
domination, building on the most reactionary elements in
Indian society and shackling the advance of the Indian
people. The Indian national movement, while emphatically
rejecting the new Constitution and reiterating the demand
for a Constituent Assembly to enable the Indian people to
choose their own form of government, has sought to utilise
every possibility afforded by the new Constitution to further
the national struggle, and continues to proclaim the aim of
complete national independence. History will determine the
outcome of this conflict, which will be decisive, not only for
the future of the Indian people, but for the future of the
British Empire.

Over the record of these past two decades since the war all
the efforts of imperialism at adaptation to the new conditions,
all the alternating waves of coercion and concession which
have characterised this period, have not succeeded in damming
the advancing tide of the national movement, nor have they
brought any solution to the problem of India.

The rising contradictions, rooted in the social and economic,
no less than the political conditions of India under imperialist
rule, again and again defeat the attempts at harmony. The
two levels, of the most advanced and elaborate finance-
capitalist exploitation and domination above, and of the
lowest levels of social misery and backwardness below,
are closely intertwined in a network of cause and effect.
In between these two levels, between the two opposing extremes
of the imperialist exploiters at the apex of the pyramid and
the destitute producing masses at the base, exist a host of
transitional forms, intermediary parasitism, subordinate
mechanisms of exploitations, old decomposing forces and new
advancing forces. Through it all, extending every year,
develop the rising national consciousness of the Indian people
and the rising economic demands of the hungry Indian masses.
This is a situation packed at every turn with social dynamite.

Every stage of civilisation and culture within class-society,
from the most primitive to the most advanced, exists in India.
The widest range of social, economic, political and cultural
problems thus find their sharpest expression in Indian condi¬
tions. The problems of the relations and co-existence of
differing races and religions ; the battle against old super-

INDIA IN THE WAR

stitions and decaying social forms and traditions; the fight
for education; the fight for the liberation of women; the
question of the reorganisation of agriculture and of the develop¬
ment of industry, and of the relationship of town and country ;
the issues of class conflict in the most manifold and acute
forms; the problems of the relationship of nationalism and
socialism : all these varied issues of the modern world press
forward with especial sharpness and urgency in India.

The solution of these manifold problems cannot be realised
in isolation, but is necessarily bound up with the central
immediate issue of national liberation from imperialism in
order to advance along the path of social liberation, releasing
the material and human forces for the creation of a new
India. The solution of the problems of India means the
solution of the most typical and sharpest problems, in their
most complicated form, that confront in common the peoples
of the world.

The people of India has already played a great part in
world history, not as conquerors, but in the sphere of culture,
thought, art, and industry. The national and social liberation
of the Indian people will bring great new wealth to humanity.

PART I

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT
MIGHT BE

Chapter II. INDIA’S PROBLEM

1 The Paradox of India

2 The “ Silent Censorship ” over India

3 Mythologies and Realities

Chapter III. THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY
OF INDIA

1 The Wealth of India

2 The Poverty of India

3 Over-Population Fallacies

Chapter IV. A CONTRAST OF TWO WORLDS

1 Two Decades of Socialism and Imperialism

2 The Experience of the Central Asian Republics

Chapter II : INDIA’S PROBLEM

“ The poverty-stricken masses are to-day in the grip of an ever more
abject poverty and destitution, and this growing disease urgently and
insistently demands a radical remedy. Poverty and unemployment have
long been the lot of our peasantry and industrial workers; to-day they
cover and crush other classes also — the artisan, the trader, the small
merchant, the middle-class intelligentsia. For the vast millions of our
countrymen the problem of achieving national independence has become
an urgent one, for only independence can give us the power to solve our
economic and social problems and end the exploitation of our masses.” —
Election Manifesto of the Indian National Congress, August 1 936.

The problem of India can be very simply stated. It
is the problem of 370 million human beings who are living
in conditions of extreme poverty and semi-starvation for the
overwhelming majority, and are at the same time living
under a foreign rule which holds complete control over their
lives and maintains by force the social system leading to these
terrible conditions.

The two facts are closely connected, although not always
quite as simply as the conventional national propaganda
sometimes assumes.

These hundreds of millions are struggling for life, for the
means of life, for elementary freedom. The problem of their
struggle, and of how they can realise their aims, is the problem
of India.

1. The Paradox of India

One human being in six is an Indian. This very simple
arithmetical fact is important to bear in mind at the outset
in approaching Indian problems.

Of the total world population, estimated in 1931 at 2,025
millions, India held 353 millions, or 17 per cent. The Census
Report of 1931 states: “ The population now even exceeds
the latest estimate of the population of China, so that India
now heads the list of all countries in the world in the number
of her inhabitants.”

This most numerous people in the world (whether the
Census comparison with China is exact or not is another
question, for nobody knows the population of China) is sub-

28 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

ject to the foreign rule of a country 3,000 miles away, inhabited
by 46 million people. This is an extraordinary fact of the
modern world situation. There is nothing like it, and has
been nothing like it in history. All the African peoples, who
are also subject to foreign rule, but divided among different
Great Powers, and not yet with inner unity, number only
some 130 to 160 millions (according to the Hailey Report’s
estimate). The Chinese people has also been subjected to
the attack and partial penetration of the Great Powers, and
is to-day faced with a war of conquest conducted by Japan ;
but Chinese independence is still unbroken ; China has never
been reduced to a wholly colonial position. It is the 370
millions of India who constitute three-quarters of the British
Empire and the main basis of world imperialism.

The question of the continuance of this imperialist rule in
India has to-day become an immediate and urgent one,
both because of the visible weakening and decline of that
rule in the modern period, and of its conspicuous failure to
solve the problems of the people of the country, and also
because of the increasing awakening and determination of
the Indian people to win their freedom.

The answer to this question is likely to be decisive for the
future of imperialism in relation to the subject peoples. India
is to-day the test question, the immediate crucial question,
for all the problems of democracy and empire which stand
in the forefront in the present era.

What is the outcome of imperialist rule in India?

Whatever the divergent social and political viewpoint of
observers, on one point all, whether of the right or the left,
are agreed. After two centuries of imperialist rule, India
presents a spectacle of squalid poverty and misery of the
mass of the people without equal in the world.

This is not a question of natural poverty of the country or
deficiency of resources. The vast territories occupied by the
Indian people enjoy great natural wealth and resources, not
only in respect of the fertility of the soil and potentialities of
agricultural production, which, as further examination will
show, could, if brought into full use, provide abundant supplies
for a much greater population than the existing, but also
in respect of the raw materials for highly developed industrial
production, especially coal, iron, oil and water-power, along-

India’s problem

side the intelligence and technical aptitude and dexterity (not
wholly lost from the time when India enjoyed technical primacy
among nations, before imperialist rule) of the population.

Yet these resources and possibilities are mainly undeveloped.
If capitalism in general is characterised by waste and relative
failure to utilise the full potentialities of production, then this
failure reaches an absolute degree in India, which makes it
basically different in type from any imperialist country.

A recent American observer. Professor Buchanan, after a
monumental survey of economic and industrial development
in India up to 1934, reaches the melancholy conclusion:

“ Here was a country with all the crude elements upon
which manufacturing depends, yet during more than a
century it has imported factory-made goods in large quan¬
tities and has developed only a few of the simplest indus¬
tries for which machinery and organisation had been highly
perfected in other countries. With abundant supplies of
raw cotton, raw jute, easily mined coal, easily mined and
exceptionally high-grade iron ore ; with a redundant
population often starving because of lack of profitable
employment ; with a hoard of gold and silver second per¬
haps to that of no other country in the world; . . . with
an excellent market within her own borders and near at
hand in which others were selling great quantities of manu¬
factures ; with all these advantages, India, after a century,
was supporting only about two per cent, of her population
by factory industry.”

(D. H. Buchanan, “ The Development of Capitalist
Enterprise in India”, 1934, p. 450.)

The standard British authority on Indian economics, Dr.
Vera Anstey, Lecturer in Commerce at London University,
finds in India a picture of “ arrested economic development ”
which is felt to be

“ the more strange because, up to the eighteenth century,
the economic condition of India was relatively advanced,
and Indian methods of production and of industrial and
commercial organisation could stand comparison with those
in vogue in any other part of the world. . . .

“ It is not of course asserted that no economic progress

30 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

has been made under British rule. The results of the
British connection have been to provide India with cheap
imported manufactures, to increase the demands for many
types of Indian produce, and to introduce public works
and administrative methods which have enabled India to
produce (especially by means of extended irrigation) and
to transport (by rail and steamship) vastly increased quan¬
tities of crops and other goods. During the second half of
the nineteenth century, in particular, India’s total pro¬
duction and trade advanced by leaps and bounds.

“ But these changes brought about a peculiar inter¬
dependence between India and the West, whereby India
tended to produce and export in the main raw materials
and foodstuffs, and to import textiles, iron and steel goods,
machinery and miscellaneous manufactures of the most
varied description. Moreover, the concurrent increase in
population counterbalanced the increase in total production,
so that no considerable increase in product per head could be
traced. These facts certainly lend colour to the view that
economic development had been ‘ arrested ’ in India. . . .

“ Up to the end of the nineteenth century the effects of
British rule on the prosperity of the people were undoubtedly
disappointing.”

(V. Anstey, “The Economic Development of India”,
3rd edition, 1936, Introduction, p. 5.)

What of the more recent period in which it is sometimes alleged
that this situation has changed and that industrialisation is now
well on its way? The same authority examines the figures
revealed by the Census of 1931 and reaches a negative
conclusion : I

“ It is difficult to reconcile these figures with a picture
of rapidly progressing industrialisation. . . . Not only is
industrial development insignificant in comparison with
agricultural, .but India still depends excessively upon
foreigners for the provision of many goods and services that

Sare essential for any materially advanced country. ... A
well-balanced economic life has not yet been attained, and
the standard of life of the masses remains miserably low.”

{ibid., p. 8.)

What is the explanation of this paradox of extreme in-

India’s problem

describable poverty amidst potential plenty (far exceeding
the same paradox in ordinary capitalist countries), of arrested,
stunted economic development after two centuries of rule by the
most technically advanced highly developed industrial Power ?

In order to understand this paradox it is necessary to come
closer to the real working of imperialism in relation to the
social-economic situation of the Indian people.

For it is this failure to develop the productive resources of India that
finally sounds the death-knell of imperialism in India to-day, just as it
was the relative economic superiority of the British bourgeois
invaders to the system of rule of the feudal princes (despite the
wholesale destruction and spoliation involved in that invasion)
which caused the victory of their rule two centuries ago.

The social-political expression of this bankruptcy of the old
order in India and rise of the new is the gathering revolt of the
Indian people against imperialist rule which has more and more
dominated the Indian scene in the twentieth century.

There is no doubt that the conditions have matured for a
transformation which will end the stagnation of imperialist
decay in India and replace it by a modern advancing India
of the people.

The realisation of this task depends at the present stage on
the unity and strength of the national movement, the over¬
coming of those inner differences which still hamper develop¬
ment, and the evolution of a leadership and policy capable
of defeating imperialism and directly reflecting the interests
and (^rawing in the active participation of the masses of the
Indian people. It depends finally on the advance of the
working masses in India, and especially of the young and
still developing industrial working class, to direct leadership.

For in fact the future task before the people of India is
not only one of national liberation from imperialism —
though this is necessarily the first immediate objective — it is
also, and above all, one of a gigantic economic and social
reconstruction to end Indian poverty, cultural backwardness
and the subjection of the people. The conditions of the
present struggle already more and more clearly lay bare
these further issues.

The rising movement of the masses in India, at an acceler¬
ating pace during the two post-war decades, is the driving
force of change in India which is preparing, not only to

32 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

establish Indian democratic freedom, but at the same time,
and inseparably connected therewith, to lay the first founda¬
tions for the advance to a new social order.

The understanding of this process of transformation now
opening is the key to the understanding of Indian politics
and of the crisis in the relations of India and the world.

2. The “ Silent Censorship ” over India
Any serious approach to Indian problems has first to over¬
come a thick outwork of barriers and barbed-wire defences,
of censorship and prejudice, of official indifference and
hostility, unscientific information and propagandist myths.

The conditions of war have deepened the censorship which
at all times rests over India.

In a famous passage the leader of nineteenth-century
English Conservatism wrote of English history :

“ If the history of England be ever written by one who
has the knowledge and the courage, and both qualities are
equally necessary for the undertaking, the world would be
more astonished than when reading the annals of Niebuhr.
Generally speaking, all the great events have been dis¬
torted, most of the important causes concealed, some of the
principal characters never appear, and all who figure are
so misunderstood and misrepresented that the result is a
complete mystification.”

(Disraeli, “ Sybil ”, ch. iii.)

This “ mystification ” of English history since the capitalist
era, and especially since the “ Glorious Revolution ”, is only
the reflection of the fact that the reality of the rule of a
narrow financial oligarchy has had to be concealed behind
mythological forms.

But if this is true of English history, how much more is it
true of that history which deals with the deepest basis of
power of the English ruling class, its inexhaustible reservoir
of strength against every rival, and its decisive field of activity,
governing all its policies for three centuries — the history of
the British Empire, which means, above all, the history of
British dominion in India?

Here we come close to the mainsprings of English policy,
to an essential part of the secret of the sudden primacy of

India’s problem

capitalism in England in the second half of the eighteenth
century and in the nineteenth century, and to the underlying
factors of its strategy up to the present day.

In this sphere the tendency to official mythology and
apologetics is especially marked. The most elementary facts
of a record which lays bare the true character of bourgeois
civilisation in all its nakedness are elaborately veiled and
suppressed from the general consciousness of the English
people, and only remain treasured in the burning memories
of an Irishman or an Indian. Serious historical analysis is
commonly replaced in the Press or on the platform by a
schoolboy-Kiplingesque romance. Even the acquisition of
the Empire, which was as grimly tenacious a process of
accumulation as the lifework of a Rockefeller, is presented in
conventional history as an “ accident ” acquired in “ a fit
of absence of mind ”. Rhetoric about “ the brightest jewel
in Britain’s imperial Grown ” replaces any serious attempt
to consider the terrible and shameful conditions of the Indian
masses, which are an indictment of any Government respon¬
sible for their care.

Nowhere is this mythology more conspicuous than in the
record of the relations of England and India.

It is further notable that this tendency to mythology has
increased in the modern period. Where a Wellington, a
Burke, a Clive, a Hastings or an Adam Smith spoke frankly
and brutally of the facts of tribute, plunder and spoliation,
where even a Salisbury still spoke of “ bleeding ” India,
to-day, when the basis of power is no longer secure, modern
official utterance breathes a sickly-sweet philanthropy, behind
which is none the less concealed the real basis of exploitation
and of a very elaborate machine of repression.

The most recent historians of India in an interesting
Bibliographical Note have remarked on this transformation
from “ frankness ” to what they term a “ silent censorship ”
in the past half-century :

“ Of general histories of British India, those written a
century or more ago are, with hardly an exception, franker,
fuller and more interesting than those of the last fifty
years. In days when no one dreamed that anyone would
be seditious enough to ask really fundamental questions

34 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

(such as ‘ What right have you to be in India at all? ’)
and when no one ever thought of any public but a British
one, criticism was lively and well-informed, and judge¬
ment was passed without regard to political exigencies.
Of late years, increasingly and no doubt naturally, all
Indian questions have tended to be approached from the
standpoint of administration : ‘ Will this make for easier
and quieter government? ’ The writer of to-day inevit¬
ably has a world outside his own people, listening intently
and as touchy as his own people, as swift to take offence.

‘ He that is not for us is against us.’ This knowledge of
an overhearing, even eavesdropping public, of being in
partibus injidelium, exercises a constant silent censorship,
which has made British-Indian history the worst patch in
current scholarship.”

(E. Thompson and G. T. Garratt, “ Rise and Fulfil¬
ment of British Rule in India”, 1934, p. 665.)

But in fact this is not only a question of past history. It
is, above all, a question of present treatment and informa¬
tion. Nor is it only a question of an ideal “ censorship ” in
the anxious heart of the official apologist. It is a question
of a very real censorship which is exercised with a most
formidable mechanism alike within India and between India
and the outer world.

Within India the existing Press censorship, inaugurated in
its modern form with the Indian Press Act of 1910, and
successively sharpened and intensified to the draconic Press
Law of 1932 (incorporated in the Criminal Law Amendment
Act of 1932, Sections 14, 15 and 16), which openly pro¬
claims the aim, not only of censorship, but of “ control of
the Press ”, alongside a host of subsidiary regulations, such
as the Foreign Relations Act of 1932 and the States Pro¬
tection Act of 1934, heavily shackles the Press.1

1 The Indian Press Law establishes the crippling system of heavy
financial deposits which have to be placed with the authorities by all
newspapers and which are forfeited by executive decision. The offences
include : “ to bring into hatred or contempt His Majesty or the Govern¬
ment established by law in British India, or the administration of justice

I or any class or section of His Majesty’s subjects, or excite disaffection
towards His Majesty or the Government ” ; “ to promote feelings of hatred
between different classes of His Majesty’s subjects ” (the latter has been
applied to propaganda of class struggle).

India’s problem

At the same time a rigid and arbitrary censorship debars
most Left literature from India, thus endeavouring to cut off
Indian thought and opinion from contact with the outer
world. Further, the supply of news from the outer world
is virtually monopolised by a single agency (with an asso¬
ciated agency for internal Indian news), which receives heavy
financial payments and other privileges from the Government. 1

This attempted iron ring of isolation round India works
both ways. It also cuts off the outside world from effective
news of what is happening in India. Gable monopoly pre¬
vents any but the most misleading, hand-picked and censored
news of what is happening in India reaching the British public,
conceals the worst realities of imperialist exploitation, and
excludes any real reflection of Indian opinion and expression.

The facts of the Amritsar massacre were withheld from
knowledge for over seven months, and were as little realised |
by the general public in Britain as later the majority of the
British Labour movement ever realised that the Labour
Government which they had set up under MacDonald was
beating up, shooting and killing unarmed Indian men, women
and children, and imprisoning 60,000 to 90,000 Indians for
the offence of demanding elementary democratic rights.

If this was the situation in peace-time, it can be understood
how much the war and the war emergency regime and
censorship have intensified this situation.

The English citizen who wishes seriously to acquaint himself
with conditions and happenings in India, or with Indian
opinion, must accordingly be prepared to face considerable
difficulties, and to approach his enquiries with the under¬
standing that the facts are likely to be considerably different
from the bland official pictures.

1 Margarita Barns, in her “ India To-day and To-morrow ” (1937),
records the history of an attempt to establish an independent news agency,
and draws the following conclusion from its failure : “ We reached the
conclusion that so long as the Government shows partisanship to certain!
news organisations, financially and otherwise, it is impossible for other]
companies to become established” (p. 188). She further notes: “The
established concern was also in enjoyment of several privileges conferred
by the authorities. These included substantial cash payments for the
supply of news to Government officials, commission in the form of free
railway travel and free trunk telephone calls, official payment of expense
on certain occasions, preferential rates for the transmission of Press tele¬
grams over the inland telegraph system, and priority of treatment in the
sending of telegrams ” (p. 131). •

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

3. Mythologies and Realities

While a barbed-wire entanglement is thus set up between
India and the outer world to hamper any adequate serious
interchange of information and opinion, at the same time a
riot of imperialist propaganda, from school textbooks to broad¬
cast reports, builds up in the minds of the British public a
mythical picture of the real situation in India and the British
role in India.

The general character of this picture is familiar.

British rule is presented as a pioneer of civilisation, engaged
with self-sacrificing devotion in the uphill task of bringing
peace, enlightenment and progress to the ignorant and back¬
ward Indian people, steeped in degraded religious super¬
stition and racial rivalries.

British ideals of liberalism and democracy are supposed to
be in process of being implanted in this ungrateful soil, along
the path of gradual constitutional reform to the final aim of
full democratic institutions.

The new Constitution is presented as a great step forward
of democratic reform.

Indian mass discontent and revolt are presented as the
artificial product of a handful of extremist agitators. The
Indian National Congress is pictured as a handful of middle-
class intelligentsia, wholly unrepresentative of the “ voiceless
millions ’* of the Indian peasantry (whose true protector and
representative is supposed to be the British ruling class official).

Without foreign rule, it is claimed, Indians would be
immediately at one another’s throats (having not yet learned
the standards of European civilisation signally demonstrated
since 1914) ; India would be a sea of blood and anarchy, and
fall immediately a prey to a foreign invader.

It is unnecessary to continue further the familiar picture.

A fuller examination of the facts will reveal what are the
realities behind this mythology.

But in view of the prevalence of the familiar myths of the
“ civilising mission ”, behind which the realities of imperialism
are always and in all countries habitually concealed, it is
especially important for English readers, in approaching
Indian questions, to be vigilantly on their guard against
facile preconceptions or unconscious assumptions of

India’s problem

superiority, which are in fact only a mental reflection of a
temporary relationship of domination.

Those familiar with the general workings of imperialism
are aware that the real driving force which impels the capitalist
invaders to subjugate foreign peoples and territories with fire
and sword is neither love of the peoples nor abstract missions
of civilisation, but very concrete aims of the drive of capitalism
for extra profits.

It is true that capitalist world domination, in India as
elsewhere, has also in fact in the past, alongside its work of
destruction and spoliation, accomplished an objectively
revolutionising role, in that, by shattering the old economy,
building railways and establishing a unified system of exploita¬
tion, it has laid the foundations for a neVv stage.

This accomplishment, however, has been achieved, not
only through wholesale destruction and suffering, but under
such reactionary conditions as thwart progress and retard
the development of the subjected people.

All that has been done in India, in the way of building
railways, electric telegraphs, ports and entrepots, etc., has!
been done, not to meet the needs of the given stage of develop¬
ment of the people, but to meet the needs of commercial and
financial penetration. It has been done on the basis of the
most extreme exploitation and impoverishment of the Indian
peasantry. In order to maintain its rule, imperialism has
allied itself with the most reactionary feudal elements, which
but for British protection would have been long ago swept
away, has held the people down in ignorance and has fostered
religious and racial rivalries. Hence, the peculiar character
of the situation in India, of combining the most archaic forms
of feudal exploitation below, with the most advanced finance-
capitalist exploitation above, skimming the cream of the spoils,
and thus subjecting the Indian masses to double exploitation.

The economic and social needs of the people, the needs of
India’s own economic development, have been neglected, or
even thwarted, for fear of developing the competition of ]
Indian capitalism.

Imperialism has retarded the economic development of
India. Before British rule Indian civilisation ranked relatively
high in the world scale. The products of Indian industry
were more than a match for European products. It is since

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

British rule that India has been reduced to an extreme back¬
ward level in the world scale, to a world slum.

For this reason those who try to reach a judgement of the
“ civilising role ” of imperialism in India on the basis of such
facts as the erection of a tragically scanty supply of hospitals
(actually one hospital bed per 3,810 of the population in
British India in 1934, as against one per 384 of the population
in the Soviet Union in the same year) are like those who try
to judge the beneficent role of landlordism by the distribution
of blankets at Christmas.

A careful examination of the facts will compel the conclusion
that, despite all the talk of its “ civilising mission ” (and
despite the sincere endeavours of a few high-minded individual
medical officers, missionaries and others), imperialism as a
system is the main buttress of reaction in India to-day and
the main obstacle to progress, and by the inner laws of its
existence cannot function otherwise.

This conclusion may be unwelcome to those who still hope
to distinguish between a “ beneficent ” and a “ predatory ”
imperialism. But the evidence for it will be presented in the
following pages.

At the same time it is no less important for Indian readers
to be on their guard against corresponding presuppositions
and conventional mythologies in the opposite direction.

For in opposition to the conventional imperialist
mythology some backward-looking sections in India have
endeavoured to build up a counter-mythology. In reaction
against the evils of imperialist domination, they have en¬
deavoured to paint a picture of a golden age of India in the
past before British rule. They seek to slur over the evils of
the rotting social system which went down before the British
onset. They seek, not only to explain historically, but to
idealise and glorify just those reactionary survivals of India’s
past which hamper progress, weigh down the consciousness
of the people and prevent unity. On the basis of these re¬
actionary survivals they seek to build up national conscious¬
ness. In this way they have sought to turn the fight against
imperialism into a fight against “ Western civilisation ” in
general. They turn their gaze backwards, not forwards.

This is not to strengthen the national front, but to weaken
it. Nothing is to be gained by failing to face those evils of

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 39

Indian society, which are not only derivative from imperialist
rule, but also inherited from India’s historical past. On the
contrary, the national front grows strong precisely in pro¬
portion as it can show itself more capable than imperialism
to fight those evils which imperialism, from the very nature of
its role and social basis, is compelled to tolerate and even foster.

So long as imperialism was able to stand out as the representative
of a more advanced social and economic order, for so long, whatever
its attendant cruelties and waste, it was bound to dominate. To-day,
the more clearly the forces of the national front become identified with
the advancing social forces of the Indian people, and can stand out
as the representatives of a superior social and economic order to
imperialism, the more certain becomes their future victory.

Chapter III: THE WEALTH AND
THE POVERTY OF INDIA

“ The most arresting fact about India is that her soil is rich and her
people poor.” — M. L. Darling, “ The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt,"
‘925. P- 73-

Two facts stand out in the present situation of India.

One is the wealth of India — -the natural wealth, the abund¬
ant resources, the potential prosperity within reach of the entire
existing population, and of more than the present population.

The other is the poverty of India — the poverty of the over¬
whelming majority of the people, a poverty beyond the imagina¬
tion of any accustomed to the conditions of the Western world.

Between these two lies the problem of the existing social and
political order in India.

1. The Wealth of India

India is a country of poor people. But it is not a poor
country.

Not only are the natural resources of India exceptionally
favourable for the highest degree of prosperity for the popula¬
tion through combined agricultural and industrial development

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

but it is also the case that prior to British rule Indian economic
development stood well to the forefront in the world scale.

It is well known that in former ages the wealth of India
was considered to be fabulous in the view of inhabitants of
other countries. Such accounts need to be treated with suit¬
able scepticism, since observers of those times looked more to
the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the rich and the
powerful than to the distribution of wealth. Characteristic of
this type of observer was Clive when he entered Murshidabad,
the old capital of Bengal, in 1757 and wrote:

“ This city is as extensive, populous and rich as the
city of London, with this difference that there were indi¬
viduals in the first possessing infinitely greater property
than in the last city.”

(Quoted in the Indian Industrial Commission Report,
p. 249.)

While allowing for variation and exaggeration in such re¬
ports as are available, and for the absence of any possibility of
scientific evidence, it is noticeable that travellers in India in the
seventeenth and early eighteenth century frequently reported a
general prosperity, also in the villages, which contrasts strik¬
ingly with conditions to-day.1 Thus Tavernier, in his account

1 W. H. Moreland, in his “ India at the Death of Akbar ” (1920) and
“ From Akbar to Aurangzeb ” (1923), endeavours to accumulate all the
negative evidence to show that poverty of the mass of the population .was
prevalent also in the seventeenth century. Even so, when it comes to
summing up his results in his chapter on the “ Wealth of India ” in “ India
at the Death of Akbar,” he is compelled to reach the conclusion :

“ It is improbable that for India taken as a whole the gross income
per head of the rural population has changed by any large proportion;
it may possibly be somewhat smaller, more probably it is somewhat
larger than it was, but in either case the difference would not be so great
as to indicate a definite alteration in the economic position ” (p. 286).

“ As regards primary production, agriculture yielded about the same
average income as now, forests about the same, fisheries perhaps some¬
what more, and minerals almost certainly less. As regards manu¬
factures, agricultural industries show on balance no material change;
the average income from miscellaneous handicrafts, wool-weaving and
transport production other than shipbuilding has substantially increased,
but silk-weaving shows a decline. . . . These losses are much more than
counterbalanced by gains under mineral and transport production and
miscellaneous handicrafts; but these gains in turn, substantial though
they are, become very small when we set them beside the preponderating
item of agricultural income ” (p. 287).

“ A detailed examination of three other sources of income — ship¬
building, foreign commerce and textile (cotton and jute) manufactures

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 41

of his journeys in seventeenth-century India, remarks that

“ even in the smallest villages rice, flour, butter, milk,
beans and other vegetables, sugar and other sweetmeats,
dry and liquid, can be procured in abundance.”

(Tavernier, “ Travels in India ”, Oxford University
Press edition, 1925, Vol. I, p. 238.)

Manouchi, the Venetian who became Chief Physician to
Aurangzeb in the seventeenth century, describes ecstatically
in his Memoirs the wealth of India province by province;
as typical may be taken his description of Bengal, in view of its
subsequent devastation under Clive and his successors and its
present desperate poverty:

“ Bengal is of all the kingdoms of the Mogul best known
in France. The prodigious riches transported thence into
Europe are proofs of its great fertility. We may venture
to say that it is not inferior in anything to Egypt, and that
it even exceeds that kingdom in its products of silks, cottons,
sugar and indigo. All things are in great plenty here,
fruits, pulse, grain, muslins, cloths of gold and silk.”

(F. F. Catrou, “ The General History of the Mogul
Empire ; extracted from the Memoirs of M. Manouchi
a Venetian and Chief Physician to Aurangzeb for about
40 Years ”, published by John Bowyer, London, 1 709.)

Similarly the French traveller, Bernier, in the middle of the
seventeenth century, round about 1660, twice visited Bengal
and wrote about what he saw before the break-up of the Mogul
Empire :

“ The knowledge I have acquired of Bengal in two visits
inclines me to believe that it is richer than Egypt. It ex¬
ports in abundance cottons and silks, rice, sugar and butter.
It produces amply for its own consumption of wheat,

— appears to justify the conclusion that they cannot have yielded so much
more than now as to raise the average income of the country materially
above its present level ” (p. 293).

“ India was almost certainly not richer (in Akbar’s days) than she is
now, and probably she was a little poorer ” (p. 294).

When the most painstaking argument on the other side can thus only claim
stagnation after three centuries (contrast the change in European countries
in the same three centuries) it is evident what a relative retrogression in
the world scale has taken place.

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

vegetables, grains, fowls, ducks and geese. It has immense
herds of pigs and flocks of sheep and goats. Fish of every
kind it has in profusion. From Rajmahal to the sea is an
endless number of canals, cut in bygone ages from the Ganges
by immense labour for navigation and irrigation.”

(Bernier, quoted by Sir William Willcocks, “ Lectures
on the Ancient System of Irrigation in Bengal ”,
University of Calcutta, 1930, pp. 18-19.)

Over the general question of the standard of living of the
masses in India prior to British rule controversy necessarily
reigns, though the balance of evidence and of popular tradi¬
tion undoubtedly points to a wider area of well-being.

Beyond controversy, however, and universally recognised is
the high industrial development of India, relative to con¬
temporary world standards, before British rule. The Indian
Industrial Commission of 1916-18 opened its report with the
statement :

“ At a time when the West of Europe, the birthplace
of the modern industrial system, was inhabited by uncivil¬
ised tribes, India was famous for the wealth of her rulers
and for the high artistic skill of her craftsmen. And even
at a much later period, when merchant adventurers from the
West made their first appearance in India, the industrial
development of this country was at any rate not inferior
to that of the more advanced European nations.”

(Indian Industrial Commission Report, p. 6.)

Sir Thomas Holland, the Chairman of the Commission and the
leading authority on Indian mineral resources, reported in
1908:

“ The high quality of the native-made iron, the early
anticipation of the processes now employed in Europe
for the manufacture of high-class steels, and the artistic
products in copper and brass gave India at one time a
prominent position in the metallurgical world.”

(“ The Mineral Resources of India ”, report by T. H.
Holland, 1908.)

It will be observed that iron and steel production had already
reached a high degree of development; to this extent the

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 43

material conditions for the advance to modern industry were
present.

The causes that led to the destruction of this leading posi¬
tion under British rule, and the relegation of India to a back¬
ward economic situation, will be examined in later chapters.

No less universally admitted is the fact that the natural
resources exist for the highest modern economic development
in India.

In respect of agriculture the judgement of Sir George Watt,
Reporter on Economic Products to the Government of India,
may be quoted :

“ It seems safe to affirm that with the extension of irri¬
gation, more thorough and complete facilities of transport,
improvements in methods and materials of agriculture, and
the expansion of the area of cultivation . . . the productive¬
ness of India might easily be increased by at least 50%.
Indeed, few countries in the world can be said to possess
so brilliant an agricultural prospect, if judged of purely by
intrinsic value and extent of undeveloped resources.”

(Sir George Watt, “ Memorandum on the Resources
of British India ”, Calcutta, 1894, p. 5.)

Even more striking are the potential resources for industrial
development. India possesses abundant supplies of coal,
iron, oil, manganese, gold, lead, silver and copper. (In
respect of oil, the political separation of Burma under the new
Constitution has cut off the main existing supply, and the aim
of British imperialism to safeguard its hold on Burma oil has
undoubtedly been one of the factors underlying this separation ;
but such evidence as is available indicates that there are abund¬
ant untapped sources of oil in India, which have hardly begun
to be prospected.)

Sir Edwin Pascoe, late Director of the Geological Survey
of India, reported in 1931 :

“ India possessed large reserves of coal, estimated at
36,000,000,000 tons. . . . India also had potentialities as a
first-rate producer of iron and steel, but the industry was still
in its infancy. Of manganese, one of the hardening constitu¬
ents of steel, India produced a third of the world’s supply.”

(Sir Edwin Pascoe, lecture at the Imperial Institute,
The Times, March 13, 1931.)

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

Especially important are the iron-ore deposits, which
amount, according to a conservative estimate, to 3,000 million
tons, as against 2,254 million tons for Great Britain and 1,374
million tons for Germany, and are only exceeded by the
United States, with 9,885 million tons and France with 4,369
million tons (Cecil Jones, of the Geological Survey of India,
Capital, Supplement, December 19, 1929). “ India’s iron-

ores are so immense in volume and so rich in iron contents,
that they might be said to be wasted if not utilised at present,
for her production might be the same as the average produc¬
tion of other countries such as the United States, Great Britain,
Germany, Sweden, Spain and Russia, in which the average
production was 16*2 million tons as compared with i-8
million in India. In other words, the production in India
was only a little over 1 1 % of what it should have been and
89% might be regarded as wastage.” (R. K. Das, “ The
Industrial Efficiency of India ”, 1930, p. 17.)

Still higher estimates of Indian iron-ore deposits are given
by Dr. C. S. Fox, Officiating Superintendent of the Geological
Survey of India. It is sometimes argued that the lack of
sufficient proximity of ore of good quality to satisfactory coal
supplies stands in the way of the development of the Indian
iron and steel industry. This is not correct of the “ iron belt ”
of Orissa in relation to the Bengal coal-fields. Dr. Fox quotes
■ the estimate of the American mining engineer, G. P. Perin,
who has been closely associated with the Indian iron and steel
industry for a quarter of a century and states that in the
quadrangle of which Calcutta is the north-east corner, and
lying 400 miles west and 200 miles south from that city, there
are 20,000 million tons of high-grade ore at an average dist¬
ance of 125 miles from the Bengal coal-fields. (Report of
the Indian Tariff Board regarding the Grant of Protection to
the Steel Industry, 1924.)

The Industrial Commission Report of 1918 stated :

“ The nature and extent of the mineral resources of India
have been systematically examined by the Geological Survey
Department, although it has been impossible for it with
the limited funds for establishment and prospecting equip¬
ment to carry its investigations, except in very special cases,
to a point which would warrant commercial exploitation
without further detailed enquiry.

F 1

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 45

“ The mineral deposits of the country are sufficient to
maintain most of the so-called ‘key’ industries, except those
that require vanadium, nickel and possibly molybdenum. . .

“ Iron ore is found in many parts of the Indian continent,
but the instances in which ore of good quality exists in suffi¬
cient proximity to satisfactory coal supplies are not very
numerous, though sufficient in all probability to warrant
large extensions of the existing iron and steel works.”

(Indian Industrial Commission Report, p. 36.)

It will be noted that “ limited funds for establishment and
prospecting equipment ” are allowed to prevent the Geological
Survey Department from carrying its investigations suffici¬
ently far to make possible the exploitation of these vast
potential resources for Indian wealth, which are thus merely
recorded on paper as an astronomer might map the stars.

(The total expenditure on all the “ Scientific Departments ”
in India in 1933-34 was one- third of 1 per cent, of the total
Government expenditure, and less than one-seventieth part
of the military expenditure.) It will be further noted that
the Report is content to indicate vaguely that the coal and
iron resources are “ sufficient in all probability to warrant
large extensions of the existing iron and steel works ”.

Even more significant are the potentialities of water-power
for the electrification of India and the neglect of these poten¬
tialities. The following table shows the water-power resources
of leading countries of the world and the proportion of their
use ( World Almanac, 1932), compared with India:

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

India stands second only to the United States in water-power
resources, yet uses only 3 per cent., compared to 72 per cent,
in Switzerland, 55 per cent, in Germany, 47 per cent, in Italy,
37 per cent, in France and Japan and 33 per cent, in the
United States.

On every side of Indian economy the same picture is
revealed of limitless potential wealth and actual neglect and
failure of development under the existing regime. The
menace of this situation is felt by the imperialists themselves,
even though they have no solution to offer. In the warning
words of Sir Alfred Watson, the Editor of the leading English
journal in India, the Calcutta Statesman, and Calcutta corre¬
spondent of The Times, at a meeting of the Royal Empire
Society in 1933 :

“ Sir Alfred Watson said that industrially India was a
land of missed opportunities, and that the main blame for
this rested heavily on the British. . . . Though India
possessed in abundance all the conditions for a great
industrial country, she was to-day one of the backward
nations of the world economically, and was very backward
in industry. . . . We had never tackled seriously the problem
of developing India’s undoubted capacity for industry. . . .

“ Unless India could provide in the coming years a
wholly unprecedented industrial development based on
growth of demand by her vast population, the level of
subsistence of the country, which was now appallingly low,
would fall below the starvation point.”

(Sir Alfred Watson, lecture to the Royal Empire
Society, The Times, January 4, 1933.)

2. The Poverty of India

It is against this background of the real potential wealth of
India and the failure to develop it that the terrible poverty
of the Indian population stands out with ominous significance.

Indian statistics, though voluminous in quantity for all the
purposes of the functioning of the administrative machine,
are extremely poor and deficient in quality when it comes to
the questions of the condition of the people. There is no
authoritative estimate of national income or average income
(the results of various official enquiries have been kept private

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 47

and confidential), just as there are no regular statistics, for
India or British India as a whole, of total production, of wage
rates or the average level of wages, of hours or labour con¬
ditions, no adequate health statistics and no statistics of housing.

A series of estimates of average income per head have been
made, and have been the subject of sharp controversy. These
include the following from 1868 up to the post-war period.

ESTIMATES OF NATIONAL INCOME

Estimate by —

Official
or Un-

Year

when

Relating
to year.

Annual Income
per head.

official.

made.

Rupees.

Shillings.

D. Naoroji 1 .

Unofficial

1876

1868

Baring and Barbour

Official

1882

1881

Lord Gurzon

Official

1901

1897-98

3°

W. Digby 2

Unofficial

1902

1899

Findlay Shirras 8 .

Official

1924

1911

Wadia and Joshi * .
Shah and Kham-

Unofficial

1925

1913-14

44i

bata fi

Unofficial

1924

1921-22

Simon Report

Official

1930

ig2I-22

I l6

■55

V. K. V. Rao 8
Central Banking En¬
quiry Committee
(agricultural popu-

Unofficial

1939

1925-29

117

lation only)

Official

■931

1928

Findlay Shirras 7 .

Official

■932

■ 931

94i

Sir James Grigg 8 .

Official

1938

■937-38

1 D. Naoroji, “ Poverty and Un-British Rule in India ”, 1876.

2 W. Digby, “ Prosperous British India ”, 1902.

8 G. Findlay Shirras, “ The Science of Public Finance ”, 1924.

1 Wadia and Joshi, “ The Wealth of India ”, 1925.

5 Shah and Khambata, “ Wealth and Taxable Capacity of India ”, 1924.

8 V. K. V. Rao, “ India’s National Income ”, 1939.

7 G Findlay Shirras, “ Poverty and Kindred Economic Problems in
India ”, 1932.

8 Sir James Grigg, Finance Member of the Government of India,
Budget speech in the Central Legislative Assembly, April, 1938.

These figures are not comparable, owing to the differences
of basis of computation, as well as owing to far-reaching
changes in the level of prices. The Index Number of Indian
Prices, based on 1873 as 100 (thirty-nine articles unweighted,
but excluding food-grains up to 1897) rose to 116 by 1900, to

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

143 by 1913 and to 281 by 1920; then declined to 236 in
1921, 227 in 1925, 171 in 1930 and 125 in 1936.

The basis of computation also shows a wide range of
variation, and the various estimates can only be taken as
rough indications. The older official estimates were based
on the total value of agricultural output, with an assumed
addition of 50 per cent, for non-agricultural income (almost
certainly an over-estimate). Digby’s figure excluded income
for services. The best known and most generally accepted
older estimates were those of Naoroji for 1868, which gave
£2 a head; of Major Baring (later Lord Cromer), announced
in 1882, which gave £2 5 s. a head ; and of Lord Curzon, when
Viceroy, in a speech in 1901, which gave £2 a head. These
figures speak for themselves for the officially admitted con¬
dition of India after over a century of British rule.

The later figures show a much wider variation. This is
partly a reflection of the extreme instability of prices, which
more than doubled between 1912 and 1920, and then a decade
later, from 1931 onwards, fell to below the old pre-war level.
The post-war estimates of Professor Findlay Shirras, who held
the position of Director of Statistics to the Government of
India from 1914 to 1921, also assumed an increase in the
proportion of non-agricultural income after the war.

The Simon Commission Report in 1930, whose first volume
was designed for wide circulation as a general apologia for
imperialist rule in India, produced an inflated figure of nearly
£8 a year for the average Indian income ; and this estimate
has since received wide currency. As this estimate represents
the highest estimate that has at any time been put forward,
it is worth examining the basis on which it was reached.

Although reporting in 1930, the Simon Commission chose
for its basis the years of highly inflated prices immediately
after the war, then nearly a decade old. It quoted a series
of estimates of average income during 1919-20, 1920-21 and
1921-22, ranging from 74 rupees to 1 16 rupees. It then chose
the highest of these, admittedly as “ the most optimistic of
the above estimates ” (Vol. I, p. 334). Thereafter it adopted
and continued to use this exceptional figure in its sub¬
sequent calculations, as if it were typical of the period as a
whole, even though it had represented a point close to the
peak of the post-war boom (“ considering that prices have

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 49

meanwhile fallen, it can hardly be put at a higher figure
to-day ”, Vol. II, p. 207 — in fact, the price index fell from 281
in 1920 to 1 71 in 1930 and 119 by 1934), and equated this
inflated figure to nearly (“ less than ”) £8 a year in English
money as the average Indian’s annual income, compared to a
corresponding figure of £95 for the average English income.

Even so, this “ most optimistic ” estimate by the official Simon
Commission of the average Indian’s income amounts to 5 i. a day in
1921-22.

To get closer to the real facts to-day, however, it is necessary
*to make corrections for the factors left out of account.

The Government Index of Indian Prices fell from 236 in
1921 to 125 in 1936 — a drop of nearly one half. This drop
has affected most acutely agricultural prices, the main basis
of Indian income. Between 1921 and 1936 the Index of retail
prices of food grains shows a fall, for rice from 355 to 178,
for wheat from 360 to 152, for gram from 406 to 105, for barley
from 325 to 134 — a general drop of more than one half.

Thus, allowing for this collapse of agricultural prices, the Simon
Commission's 5 d. a day for ig2l-22 becomes for the present day more
like 2 \d. a day.

This, however, is only a gross average income, not the actual ■
income of the overwhelming majority. From it have to be !
deducted the heavy home charges and tribute of imperialism
(interest on debt, dividends on British capital investments,
banking and financial commissions, etc.) drawn out of India
without return in the shape of imported goods. This drain
is estimated by Shah and Khambata at a little over one tenth
of the gross national income. The 2 \d. thus becomes 2 \d.

Next, allowance has to be made for the extreme inequality
of income covered in the average. If, for example, the average
for Britain of £95 per head, given by the Simon Commission,
were in fact typical, it would mean that a British worker
with a wife and three children would be enjoying £475 a
year. Actually the worker who gets half this is in an extremely
favoured position, and the average worker gets more like one-
third at the best — usually under one-third. The same
inequality of division applies to India. Professor K. T. Shah
and K. J. Khambata in their “ Wealth and Taxable Capacity
of India ” (1924) showed that 1 per cent, of the population
gets one-third of the national income, while 60 per cent.

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

5°

of the population get 30 per cent, of the income. This means
that for the 60 per cent, or majority of the population any
gross figure of the average national income per head must
be exactly halved to represent what they actually get.1

Thus, applying the statistics of the division of income to the Simon
Commission’ s “ most optimistic ” estimate, after allowing for the
subsequent fall of prices and the drain of home charges and tribute,
we reach the conclusion that the average Indian of the majority of
the population at the present day gets from id. to 1 \d. a day.

This calculation is on the basis of allowing every factor
favourable to imperialism and on the basis of imperialism’s
own estimates.

Confirmation of this general conjecture (it cannot be more,
owing to the absence of exact statistics) is afforded by two
more recent estimates from official sources. In 1931 the
Indian Central Banking Enquiry Committee reported :

“ From the reports of the Provincial Committees and other
published statistical information, the total gross value of
the annual agricultural produce would work to about
Rs. 1200 crores on the basis of the 1928 price levels. On
this basis and taking into consideration the probable income
from certain subsidiary occupations estimated at 20 per cent,
of the agricultural income, and ignoring the rise in popula-

1 Some light on the division of incomes, and on the lowness of incomes,
in India is afforded by the commercial estimate of “ The Indian Market ”
in The Times Trade and Engineering Indian Supplement of April 1939. In this
unofficial estimate for their own use the British capitalists are not concerned
with any propaganda purpose of painting a rosy picture of the results of
imperialist exploitation, but are solely concerned with the actual facts for
the business purpose of judging the range of consumers to be reached;
and the result is a strikingly different picture from that of the Simon Com¬
mission. The estimated range of incomes of Indian households is presented
as follows :

Income in Rupees.

English

Equivalent.

Number of
Households.

Over 100,000

Averaging 5,000

Averaging 1,000

Averaging 200

Averaging 50

£7.500

£375

£75

£15

£3 ‘or.

6,000
270,000
250,000
35,000,000
the remainder

(This table, compiled by the British capitalists for their private use, speaks
for itself.

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 51

tion in the last decade and the fall in prices since 1929, the
average income of an agriculturist in British India does not
work out at a higher figure than about Rs. 42 or a little
over £3 a year.”

(Report of the Indian Central Banking Enquiry
Committee, 1931, Vol. I, p. 39.)

This gives 2 d. a day per head gross income for the agricultural
population. The figure is based on 1928 price levels.
Between 1928 and 1936 the Index of prices fell from 201 to
1 25. This would reduce the income of 2 d. a day to 1 \d. a
day for the present period.

In April 1938 Sir James Grigg, Finance Member of the
Government of India, estimated the total national income of
India at 1 ,600 crores of rupees, or ■£ 1 ,200 million. Assuming
that this figure, which was given for the purpose of indicating
the proportion of taxation to gross national income, applies
only to British India (if it were a figure for all India, the
income per head would, of course, be proportionately lower),
and dividing this by the population of British India, estimated
at 285 millions in 1938, we get a result of a gross average
income of 56 rupees or 84J. per head. Applying the statistics
of division of income to this gross figure, we once again reach
a result of 1 *38^/. a day for the average Indian of the majority
of the population in British India, or just over 1 \d. a day.

These figures are only important to give a preliminary
conception of the depth of Indian poverty.

What do these figures mean in living conditions? The
leading Indian economists, Shah and Khambata, express it
as follows :

“ The average Indian income is just enough either to
feed two men in every three of the population, or give them
all two in place of every three meals they need, on condition
that they all consent to go naked, live out of doors all the
years round, have no amusement or recreation, and want
nothing else but food, and that the lowest, the coarsest, the
least nutritious.”

(Shah and Khambata, “ The Wealth and Taxable
Capacity of India ”, 1924, p. 253.)

Some notion can be obtained by comparing the costs of the

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

Jail Code and the Famine Code. The cost of maintaining
one prisoner in India in 1935 for one year was 105-45 rupees, or
more than two and a half times the Banking Enquiry Com¬
mittee’s estimate of the average Indian agriculturist’s income.
An official enquiry into working-class budgets in Bombay in
1923 revealed the following comparison between the workers’
standard of life and the standard of the Jail Code and the
Famine Code :

DAILY CONSUMPTION PER ADULT MALE

Bombay Jails .

Bombay

Famine

Code

(diggers).

1-29 lb.

Figures

not

available

Cereals
Pulses
Meat
Salt .
Oils .
Others

(Report on an Enquiry into Working-Class Budgets in Bombay,
Bombay Labour Office, 1923.)

The Bombay worker, who is better off than the mass of the
rural population, is only able to eat on the level of famine
rations and below the jail rations of prisoners.1

As for the conditions of the mass of the population, from
year to year Government Reports reveal the same picture:

“ All but the most highly skilled workmen in India

1 Subsequent criticism of the above startling result, to the effect that it
left out of account the small extras in the way of cheap sweetmeats, condi¬
ments, fish, vegetables or fruit that the worker might consume, led to further
careful official calculations in 1925. These showed that all such extras
amounted to only 4-6 per cent, of the food balance shown in the above
table, or the equivalent of 1 1 3 calories added to the previous total of 2,450
making a final daily total of 2,563 calories consumed by a Bombay adult
worker ( Bombay Labour Gazette, April 1925, pp. 841-2). This may be
contrasted with the minimum scale of 3,390 calories laid down by the
Report of the British Medical Association’s Sub-Committee on Nutrition,
or with the minimum of 2,800 calories for Indian conditions estimated by
Professor R. Mukerjee (“ Food Planning for Four Hundred Millions ”,
>938).

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 53

receive wages which are barely sufficient to feed and
clothe them. Everywhere will be seen overcrowding, dirt
and squalid misery.” (“ India in 1927-28.”)

“ A large proportion of the inhabitants in India are
still beset with poverty of a kind which finds no parallel in
Western lands, and are living on the very margin of sub¬
sistence.” (“ India in 1929-30.”)

“ 70 to 80% of the population are still living on almost
the margin of subsistence.”

(Sir Alfred Ghatterton, Journal of the East India
Association, July 1930.)

•

In 1933 Major-General Sir John Megaw, Director of the
Indian Medical Service, issued a report on Public Health,
in which he estimated that 39 per cent, of the population is
well nourished, 41 per cent, poorly nourished and 20 per cent,
very badly nourished — that is, that 61 per cent., or nearly
two-thirds, are under-nourished. The corresponding figures
for Bengal are 22 per cent., 47 per cent., and 31 per cent,
respectively — that is, that 78 per cent, in Bengal, or nearly
four-fifths, are under-nourished. He further reported that
disease is “ widely disseminated throughout India ” and “ is
increasing steadily and rather rapidly ”.

In 1926 the Government appointed a Royal Commission on
Agriculture in India. Although it was precluded by its
terms of reference from touching the real questions of land
ownership, land tenure, rent and land-revenue exactions
underlying the poverty, it was immediately inundated with
evidence from the Government’s own officers of the terrible
conditions of the peasantry. Dr. D. Clouston, Agricultural
Adviser to the Government of India, first witness, declared
that “ the rural population is of poor physique and easily
succumbs to epidemics ”. Colonel Graham told the Commis¬
sion that “ malnutrition is one of the outstanding difficulties
in improving agriculture ”. Lieut. -Colonel R. McHarrison,
in charge of the Deficiency Diseases Enquiry at the Pasteur
Institute at Coonoor, was even more emphatic :

“ Of all the disabilities from which the masses in India
suffer Malnutritipn is perhaps the chief. . . . Malnutrition
is the most far-reaching of the causes of diseases in India.”

(Lt.-Col.- R. McHarrison, “ Memorandum on Mai-

54 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

nutrition as a Cause of Physical Inefficiency and Ill-

health among the Masses in India ”, Evidence to the

Royal Commission on Agriculture, I, ii, p. 95.)

In 1929 the Government appointed a Royal Commission
on Labour in India. It found that “ in most industrial
centres the proportion of families and individuals who are in
debt is not less than two thirds of the whole ... in the great
majority of cases the amount of debt exceeds three months’
wages and is often far in excess of this amount ” (p. 224). It
found wages ranging from the most favourable average for
Bombay textile workers of 561-. a month for men and 261-. for
women; for Bombay unskilled workers, 30 s. a month; for
coal-miners in the principal Jharria coal-field, an average of
from 15J. to 22.1. a month; for workers in seasonal factories,
from 6 d. to u. a day for men, and from 4 d. to 9 d. a day for
women; for unskilled workers in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa,
9 d. a day for men, 6 d. for women and 4 d. for children, and in
Madras and the United Provinces, as low as 5 d. a day for men.
It found that in the “ unregulated ” factories and industries,
in which the overwhelming majority of Indian industrial
workers are employed, and where no factory legislation
applies, “ workers as young as five years of age may be found
in some of these places working without adequate meal
intervals or weekly rest days, and often for 10 or 12 hours
daily, for sums as low as 2 annas [2 Jrf.] in the case of those of
tenderest years” (p. g6).

In respect of housing, the average working-class family
fdoes not even enjoy one room, but more often shares part of a
room. In 191 1 69 per cent, of the total population of Bombay
were living in one-room tenements (as against 6 per cent, in
London in the same year), averaging 4-5 persons per tenement.
The 1931 census showed that 74 per cent, of the total popula¬
tion of Bombay were living in one-room tenements — thus
revealing an increase in overcrowding after two decades.
One-third of the population were living more than five
persons to a room: 256,379 from six to nine persons per
room; 8,133 from ten to nineteen persons per room; 15,490
twenty persons and over per room. The terrible overcrowding
is even more sharply revealed when working-class conditions
are taken separately and not merged in an average. In

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 55

1921-22 the Bombay Labour Office enquiry into working-
class budgets found that 97 per cent, of the working-class
families in Bombay were living in one-room tenements,
often containing two and even up to eight families in one room.
In Karachi the Whitley Report found that almost one-third
of the whole population was crowded at the rate of six to nine
persons in a room. In Ahmedabad, 73 per cent, of the working
class lived in one-room tenements.

As for sanitation, the Whitley report found :

“ Neglect of sanitation is often evidenced by heaps of
rotting garbage and pools of sewage, whilst the absence of
latrines enhances the general pollution of air and soil.
Houses, many without plinths, windows and adequate
ventilation, usually consist of a single small room, the only
opening being a doorway too low to enter without stooping.
In order to secure some privacy, old kerosene tins and gunny
bags are used to form screens which further restrict the
entrance of light and air. In dwellings such as these,
human beings are born, sleep and eat, live and die ” (p. 271).

The Bombay Labour Office enquiry into working-class
budgets in 1932-33 found that in respect of water supply
26 per cent, of the tenements had one tap for eight tenements
and less, 44 per cent, had one tap for nine to fifteen tenements,
and 29 per cent, had one tap for sixteen tenements and over
(Report of Enquiry into Working-Class Budgets in Bombay,
1935). Eighty-five per cent, had only one privy for eight
tenements or less; 12 per cent, had one privy for nine to
fifteen tenements, and 24 per cent, had one privy for sixteen
tenements and over. In 1935 the Ahmedabad Textile
Labour Union conducted an enquiry into industrial housing,
and found that out of a total of 23,706 tenements investigated,
5,669 had no provision of any kind for water, while those
which had a supply had one to two taps in an area occupied
by 200 or more families ; 5,000 tenements had no latrine
accommodation ; there was no sanitation or drainage.

A witness before the Industrial Commission declared:

“ Although I have witnessed a good deal of poverty in
my walk through life and in many countries, and although
I have read a great deal about poverty ... I did not

56 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

realise its poignancy and its utter wretchedness until I came
to inspect the so-called homes of the poorer classes of
Bombay . . . (See the labourer) in his home amongst his
family, and one instinctively asks oneself : Is this a human
being or am I conjuring up some imaginary creature
without a soul from the underworld ?

“In such a room — ten by ten feet — where there is hardly
space to move, whole families sleep, breed, cook their food
with the aid of pungent cow-dung cakes, and perform all
the functions of family life, the common latrines alone being
set apart. Some of the rooms so-called in the upper
stories of the older houses are often nothing more than holes
beneath the sloping roof, in which a man cannot stand
upright. The rear rooms are usually dark and gloomy,
and it is only at a closer inspection, when one’s eyes have
become accustomed to the gloom, that the occupants can be
seen at all.”

(A. E. Mirams, “ Evidence before the Indian Industrial
Commission ”, IV, p. 354.)

An Indian woman doctor, appointed by the Bombay
Government to investigate, reported :

“ In one room on the second floor of a chawl, measuring
some 1 5 by 12 feet, I found six families living. Six separate
ovens on the floor proved this statement. On enquiry, I
ascertained that the actual number of adults and children
living in this room was 30. . . . Three out of six of the
women who lived in this room were shortly expecting to be
delivered. . . . The atmosphere at night of that room
filled with smoke from six ovens and other impurities would
certainly physicially handicap any woman and infant both
before and after delivery. This was one of many such
rooms I saw. In the rooms in the basement of a house
conditions were far worse. Here daylight with difficulty
penetrated, sunlight never.”

(Bombay Labour Gazette, September 1922, p. 31.)

It is a pity that Miss Katherine Mayo (whose book “ Mother
India ”, follows the familiar theme of the upper-class
woman’s lecture to poor people about their insanitary habits)

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 57

could not be compelled to live under these conditions for
twelve months, with the same income as her twenty-nine
fellow occupants of one room, and have a baby in their
midst, and she would soon change her tune and learn to
direct her anger elsewhere than against the victims of these
infamous conditions who so heroically maintain life through
it all.

The effects of these conditions — of semi-starvation, over¬
crowding and no sanitation — on health can be imagined.
They are reflected in a recorded death rate of 23-6 per
thousand in 1935, compared with 12-3 for England and Wales.
The expectation of life for an Indian is less than half that of an
inhabitant of England and Wales.

“ The average length of life in India is low as compared
with that in most of the Western countries ; according to the
census of 1921, the average for males and females was
respectively 24-8 and 24-7 years, or a general average of
24-75 years in India as compared with 55-6 years in England
apd Wales. It was found to have decreased further in 1931,
being 23-2 and 22-8 years for males and females respectively.”

(“ Industrial Labour in India ”, International Labour
Office, 1938, p. 8, based on Census of India, 1931,
p. 98.) 1

1 Vital statistics in India are hopelessly inaccurate. The Census Report
of 1931 places the margin of error at 20 per cent. The official returns of
the expectation of life show the following figure from i88j to 191 1 :

1881. 1891. 1901. 1911.

Males . . . 23-67 2459 23-63 22-59

Females . . . 25-58 25-54 23-96 23-31

According to these returns given by the 1921 Census Commissioners, the
expectation of life decreased from 1881 to 1911; no figure was calculated
for 1921. This situation in India over the past half-century contrasts with
England and Wales, where the expectation of life increased from 45-4 in
1881-90 to 6o-8 in 1933.

An alternative calculation for 1931 places the figure at 26-9 years for
males and 26-6 years for females. This would indicate a slight increase;
but the inaccuracy of these figures is evidenced when we compare the
returns for the expectation of life and the recorded death rate. When we
calculate the death rate even from the more favourable figure of the expec¬
tation of life given in 1931, it would show a death rate of 37 per thousand
for males and 38 per thousand for females, as against the recorded figure
of 23. “ The expectation-of-life figures are themselves defective, but such
as they are they support the conclusion that the assumption that the
normal death rate in India is not less than 33 per thousand is correct.”
(G. Chand, “ India’s Teeming Millions ”, p. 1 1 3.)

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

They are reflected in a maternal mortality rate of 24-5 per
thousand live births compared with 4-1 in England and
Wales. They are reflected in the contrast between the
death rate of 41 -05 per thousand for Ahmedabad City,
where the Indian people live under the conditions just
described, and 12-84 f°r Ahmedabad Cantonment, where
the Europeans live with every lavish provision for their own
health and convenience. They are reflected in an infantile
death rate of 164 out of every thousand born within one
year for India, during 1935, contrasting with 57 for England
and Wales, and reaching to 239 in Calcutta, 248 in Bombay
and 227 in Madras (much higher in the one-room tenements;
thus in Bombay in 1926 the rate in one-room tenements
was 577 per thousand births, in two-room tenements 254 per
thousand, and in hospitals 107 per thousand).

Deaths in India are mainly ascribed in the official records
to “ fevers ” (3-8 millions out of 6-6 millions in British
India in 1935) — a conveniently vague term to cover the
effects of semi-starvation, poverty conditions and their
consequences in ill-health. That three deaths in four in
India are due to “ diseases of poverty ” is the judgement
of the standard economic authority on India, a writer
sympathetic to imperialism :

“ 20-5 out of a total death-rate of 26-7 per thousand
of the population, in 1926, were accounted for by cholera,
small-pox, plague, ‘ fevers dysentery and diarrhoea —
nearly all of which may be considered to fall under the
heading of ‘ diseases of poverty ’, and most of which may
be considered to be preventable. Better sanitation (in¬
cluding the provision of a pure water-supply, the prevention
of the contamination of food, efficient drainage and sewage
systems, and better housing) together with the provision
of sufficient proper medical advice and institutional treat¬
ment, would undoubtedly reduce drastically the excessive
death rates in the cities and the deaths from tuberculosis
and respiratory diseases. ... A large proportion of the
deaths (and ill-health) due to disease in India could be
prevented by the introduction of means already successfully
adopted in most Western countries.”

(V. Anstey, “ The Economic Development of India ”,
p. 69.)

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 59

This picture of a poverty and misery on the lowest level
in the world is borne out by all unofficial observers. Here
is the impression of an American who went to live in an
Indian village, and found that all attempts at medical aid
or other assistance to the villagers broke against the basic
problem of poverty :

“ Between 30 and 40 millions of the population do not have
more than one meal a day and live on the verge of perpetual
starvation. Diet was the hopeless feature in any attempt to
prescribe for the sick people who flocked to my door.”

“ If the suggestion is made that the sordid clothes of
a cholera patient be burned, the answer is that, in case he
gets well, he will have nothing to put on. Poverty prevents
such an extravagance.”

“ It is food and education, not pills, that are needed
in an Indian village.”

(G. Emerson, “ Voiceless India ”, 1931.)

The conservative imperialist Calcutta correspondent of The
Times can only record the same impression, that the view
of India at close quarters is the view of “ semi-starvation ”
which “ obtrudes upon the eye

“ No one can pass through various parts of India with¬
out being profoundly touched at the sad spectacles of
malnutrition and semi-starvation that obtrude themselves
upon the eye, or can doubt that very many of the inhabi¬
tants of India never know what it is to have enough to eat.

“ Similarly the health authorities in Bengal, to cite
the province with which I am most familiar, assert that
the inhabitants are not so well-nourished to-day as they
were a generation or so ago.”

(Calcutta correspondent, The Times, February 1, 1927.)

This is the situation of the people of India after 180 years
of imperialist rule.

It is important to note that this situation of poverty is
not a static one. It is a dynamic and developing one. Many
competent observers agree with The Times correspondent
in remarking on a worsening of conditions in the modern
period. The Report of the Bengal Director of Health

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

for 1927-8 recorded that “the present peasantry of Bengal
are in a very large proportion taking to a dietary on which
even rats could not live for more than five weeks ”, and that
“ their vitality is now so undermined by inadequate diet
that they cannot stand the infection of foul diseases
Similarly in 1933 the Director of the Indian Medical Service
reported, as already noted, that “ throughout India ” disease
“ is increasing steadily and rather rapidly This worsening
of the situation is connected with the growing agrarian crisis
under the conditions of imperialist rule, which is the most
powerful driving force to basic social and political change.

3. Over-population Fallacies

What lies behind this terrible poverty of the Indian people?

Before we can begin to consider the real causes, it is necessary
to clear out of the way some of the current superficial explana¬
tions which are often made a substitute for serious analysis.

Typical of these is the explanation of Indian poverty in
terms of the social backwardness, ignorance and superstition
of the masses of the people (conservatism in technique, caste
restrictions, cow-worship, neglect of hygiene, the position
of women, etc.). Undoubtedly these factors play a formidable
role in Indian poverty, and the overcoming of all such retro¬
gressive features is a leading part of the task of reconstruction
before the Indian people. But when these factors are de¬
clared to be the explanation of Indian poverty, then the cart
is put before the horse. The social and cultural backward¬
ness is the expression and consequence of the low economic
level and political subjection, and not vice versa. Illiteracy
can be the condemnation of a government which refuses
education and holds a people in ignorance, but not of the
people which is refused the opportunity to learn. The root
problem is economic-political, and the cultural problem
depends on this. The social and cultural backwardness
cannot be overcome by preaching uplift or giving lectures
on health, while the grinding poverty remains the same
and defeats all such efforts. It can only be overcome by a
change in the material basis of organisation, which is the key
to open every other door. The achievement of this requires
a change in class relations, which means a change in the form
of State. Only a powerful popular movement, by breaking the

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 6l

yoke of imperialist and feudal relations over the land, can open
the way to simultaneous material, social and cultural advance.

The truth of this analysis has been abundantly shown by
the example of the Soviet Union. The poverty and low level
of the people under Tsarism were commonly explained by
the learned as the inevitable consequence of the supposed
innate backwardness of the Russian peasantry. But once
the workers and peasants combined to throw off their ex¬
ploiters, they showed themselves capable of a technical and
cultural progress which has left the most advanced countries
behind. The same will be shown, through whatever different
forms and stages of development the process may have to
pass, in India. The real backwardness of the Indian peasantry
consists, not only in the obvious outer signs of the low technical
and cultural level, which are the visible symptoms of subjection
and arrested development, but above all in the subjection itself
and submission to the imperialists and landlords, whose domina¬
tion prevents development. But this is a backwardness that
is coming to an end, and herein lies the hope for the
future.

No less widely current is the oft-repeated explanation of
Indian poverty as the supposed consequence of “ over¬
population ”. This view is so prevalent, and through
constant repetition so readily springs to the minds of nine
out of ten Western readers who have not had the opportunity
to acquaint themselves with the facts, that it is important
to deal with it more fully in order to show how completely
it is contradicted by the known facts.

Of all the “ easy lies that comfort cruel men ” the myth
of over-population as the cause of poverty under capitalism
is the grossest. Its modern vogue dates, as is well known,
from the reactionary parson Malthus, who, indeed, came
out with nothing new, but produced his theory appositely
in 1798 as a political weapon (as the title of his work declared)
against the French Revolution and liberal theories, and was
rewarded with a professorship at the East India Company’s
college. His theory “ was greeted with jubilation by the
English oligarchy as the great destroyer of all hankerings after
human development ” (Marx, “ Capital ”, Vol. I, ch. xxv),
and, though laughed at by scientists and economists of all
schools, has remained the favourite philosophy of reaction.

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

Its argument rested on the assumption of placing arbitrary
iron limits to the possibilities of productive development
at the very moment when productive development was
entering on its greatest expansion. The experience of the
nineteenth century smashed it, when the expansion of wealth
so glaringly exceeded the growth of population and revealed
the causes of poverty to lie elsewhere. In the twentieth
century, especially after the World War and with the world
economic crisis, attempts were made to revive it. The
existence of international statistics, however, killed it again ;
the fact that, despite the wholesale destruction of the war
and after, world production of foodstuffs, of raw materials
and of industrial goods showed a continuous increase far
exceeding the growth of world population compelled men
to look for the cause of their miseries in the social system.
The ruling class began to find their problem how to restrict
the production of wealth, and evolved many ingenious
schemes for this purpose; while in respect of population,
their complaint became that the peoples of Europe and
America were not producing enough babies for the supply
of cannon-fodder. Less wealth and more human beings
became the cry of the modern ruling class, reversing Mai thus.

Driven from Europe and America, this discredited theory
of old-fashioned reaction now tries to find its last lair in
Asia. The poverty of India and China is solemnly ascribed,
not to the social system, but to “ over-population ”. The
beneficent effects of imperialist rule, it is declared, having
eliminated war from the Indian continent, and having
supposedly diminished the range of pestilence and famine
(about the last claim there is a hesitant note, in view of the
notoriously heavy famines under British rule from 1770 to
the opening of the twentieth century, followed by the 14
million deaths from influenza in 1918 and the “ rats’ dietary ”
conditions of the majority of the population to-day), have
unfortunately removed the blessed “ natural checks ” to
the growth of population and permitted the improvident
and prolific Indian people to breed beyond the limits of
subsistence. Hence the growing pressure on the land and
semi-starvation conditions which are the inevitable natural
consequence of the benevolence of British rule. These can
only be changed when the Indian people learn to limit their

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 63

rate of growth to something more like the proportions of the
sensible European peoples.

This kind of argumentation becomes more and more
fashionable in imperialist circles as the problem of India
grows more pressing. “ Where is the Indian Malthus ”,
cries out a leading imperialist economic expert dramatically*
“ who will inveigh against the devastating torrent of Indian
children? ” (Anstey, “ Economic Development of India ”,
p. 475). “ India seems to illustrate the theories of Malthus ”,

declares another expert of Empire economics, “as to the
increase of population up to the margin of subsistence when
unchecked by war, pestilence or famine ” (L. G. A. Knowles,
“ The Economic Development of the British Overseas
Empire ”, p. 351). The view spreads to “ left ” “ pro¬
gressive ” circles who are caught in the imperialist trap ;
a Conference on “ Birth Control in Asia ” was organised
in 1933 at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine under the auspices of the Birth-Control Inter¬
national Centre, to press the claims of birth control, not
merely as a medical question, but as an economic means
towards the solution of the problems of poverty in Asia
(see the report, “ Birth Control in Asia ”, published by the
Birth-Control International Information Centre in 1935).
It spreads to Government Reports :

“ Increased production of food ultimately effects little
improvement in the standard of living or in the quantity
of foodstuffs available, since the population quickly multi-,
plies under these favourable conditions. Formerly war,
famine and pestilence were all active in reducing the
numbers for which the land had to provide sustenance;
war and famine have been largely negatived as active
influences, whilst deaths from pestilence have been con¬
siderably reduced. The result is a steadily growing
pressure on the land. . . . We are not alone in holding
that this factor exerts considerable influence in depressing
the general standard of living.”

(Whitley Commission Report on Labour in India,

I93I» P- 249-)

64 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

Royal Commission, and speaking through the lips of a former
Speaker of the House of Commons.

What are the facts?

In the first place, all the above arguments convey the
picture of an enormously rapid increase of Indian population
under British rule, extending far beyond the rate of increase
of other countries, and therefore leading to a situation of
extreme poverty owing to this abnormally rapid multiplica¬
tion of population. How many realise that the actual facts
of the history of India under British rule reveal the exact
opposite ?

The actual rate of increase of population in India under British
rule has been markedly less than that of almost any European country,
and is even near the bottom in the general scale of world increase .
This applies equally to the period as a whole of British rule or to
the last half-century.

For the period as a whole estimates only can be used,
since the first census was not taken in India till 1872. The
population of India at the end of the sixteenth century has
been estimated by Moreland (“ India at the Death of Akbar ”,
p. 22) at 100 millions. To-day the figure is 353 millions.
This makes an increase of three and a half times in over three
centuries. The population of England and Wales in 1700,,
according to the first careful estimate (that of Finlaison, the
Government Actuary in the Preface to the Census Returns
of 1831) was 5'i millions. To-day the figure is 40-4 millions.
That makes an increase of eight times in a shorter period
of two and one- third centuries. The increase in England
has been at a rate considerably more than double that of
India.1

More important is the last half-century, after the special
expansion in Europe associated with the industrial revolution
had begun to slow down. We may take first the comparison
of India and Europe before 1914, in order to keep out of

1 It is interesting to note that Professor Carr-Saunders in his recent
standard work on World Population (“World Population: Past Growth
and Present Trends ”, by A. M. Carr-Saunders, 1936) calls attention to
the fact that between 1650 and 1933 Europe’s share in the total of world
population has increased from 18 3 to 25-2 per cent., while Asia’s share has
fallen from 6o-6 to 54-5 per cent. Contrary to the still widely prevalent
mythologies, teeming Europe has been displacing the relatively declining
populations of Asia during the bourgeois period of world history.

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 6^

account the complications following thereafter and the changes
of territories in the European countries. Here are the figures
for the rate of increase of population for India and the leading
European countries between 1870 and 1910.

INCREASE OF POPULATION, 1870-1910

Increase per cent.

India ....... 18-9

England and Wales ... . . 58 0

Germany . . 59-0

Belgium ...... 478

Holland . . . . . 620

Russia ....... 73-9

Europe (average) ..... 45-4

(B. Narain, “ Population of India ”, 1925, p. 11.)

With the exception of France, the rate of growth in India was less
than that of any European country.

Coming to the period 1880-1930, we find the following
comparison. The population of England and Wales rose
from 25-9 millions in 1881 to 39-9 millions in 1931. That is
an increase of 53-8 per cent. The population of India rose
from 254 millions in 1881 to 353 millions in 1931, but the
real increase, after allowing for new territories and changes in
computation, is calculated by the Census at 85 millions. That
is an increase of 3 1 ■ 7 per cent. The rate of increase in England and
Wales for the past half century has still been nearly twice that of India.

Only in the last decade, 1921-31, has the rate of increase
in India (io-6 per cent., as against 14-2 per cent, for the
United States in the same period and 17-9 per cent, for
the Soviet Union) been higher than that of England and the
Western European countries. But the problem of poverty
in India does not date from after 1921.1

1 The leading statistician, Dr. R. R. Kuczynski, throws some doubt on
the significance and conclusions commonly drawn from the apparent
sudden leap forward of population in India between 1921 and 1931, on
the basis of which the prognostications of future “ over-population ” have
been usually built. He writes :

“ For many countries where censuses are taken, we may be able to
tell approximately the present number of inhabitants, but, owing to the
lack of adequate records of births and deaths, we know almost nothing
about population trends. Thus it would appear from the census statistics
of India that the population increased between 1921 and 1931 by 34
million or io-6 per cent. But, according to the 1931 life tables, mor¬
tality appears to be excessive, while the 1931 investigation of the number
of children per marriage and the large proportion of non-reproductive
G

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

.66

The' Central Banking Enquiry Committee, whose Report,
issued in 1 93 1 , constitutes the most extensive and authoritative
recent survey of economic conditions in India over a wide range,
found itself compelled to expose the fallacy of the conventional
explanation of Indian poverty through “ over-population ” :

“ The produce from land per head of the population
and per acre is low compared with that of many other
countries. . . . The average cultivator still continues to
live on an insufficiency of food which reacts on his physical
capacity for work and largely accounts for the high per¬
centage of mortality in the country. . . . These conditions
cannot be wholly ascribed to an undue increase in population
and consequent pressure on land. Let us compare the
growth of population in India with that in England.
Taking the three decades for which census figures are
available for both countries, we find that in England and
Wales the increase of population between 1891 to 1901
was 12-17%, between 1901 to 1911, 10-91%, and between
1911 to 1921, 4-8%, while the increase of population in
British India during the same decades was respectively
2‘4%. 5'5% and i’3%-”

(Report of the Central Banking Enquiry Committee,
I93Ii PP- 40-1.)

What of the density of population ? The density of popula¬
tion for India as a whole in 1931 was 195 per square mile,
as against 685 for England and Wales, 702 for Belgium, 631
for Holland and 348 for Germany. These figures are of
limited value in view of the unequal density of population
in different districts. But even if we take the most thickly
populated, Bengal, we find a figure of 646 per square mile,
or less than the level of England or Wales or Belgium. It is

widows would indicate that fertility is rather low. It may well be,
therefore, that the apparent increase in population in India between
1921 and 1931 was no genuine growth, but was due, for example, to
the combined effect of more accurate enumeration in 1931 and a tem¬
porary age composition which tends to swell the number of births and
to reduce the number of deaths.”

(Dr. R. R. Kuczynski, “ Population Trends in the World ”, in the
Statist, December 25, 1937.)

It is worth noting that the birth rate in India is apparently declining; the
recorded birth rate per thousand has fallen from 38 in the decade 1901— 1910
to 35 in the decade 1921-30, and stood at 34-9 in 1935.

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 67

true that in particular districts of Bengal a very high density
exists, as in Dacca with 1,265 per square mile, in Tippera
with 1,197 or Faridpur with 1,003. But on the special
question of these overcrowded districts, and the issue whether
the facts give any warranty for the assumption that the popula¬
tion has outstripped the means of subsistence even in thickly
populated Bengal, without reference to the rest of India,
reference may be made to the judgement of the last “ Bengal
Census Report ”, quoted below (see pages 71-2).

Has the growth of population outstripped the growth of
the volume of food produced ? Despite the culpable neglect
of agricultural development, and the only partial use of the
cultivable area, the available figures up to the present indicate
the contrary. The absolute volume of food produced is far
from adequate ; and, even so, part of this is exported ; but
the reasons for this inadequacy lie in the low technique of
production, the system of land ownership and the crippling
burdens on agriculture, not in any growth of population
outstripping the growth of food production. On the contrary,
the rate of growth of food production has up to the present
outstripped the rate of growth of population.

Between 1891 and 1921 the population increased by 9-3 per
cent. In the same period the area under food grains increased
by 19 per cent., or twice as fast as the growth of popula¬
tion.

For the period 1921 -31 we have the figures of Professor
P. J. Thomas in his “ Population and Production ”, issued
in 1935. Taking the average of the years 1920-21 and 1921-
22 as 100, he estimated the index figures for the average of
I93°-3i and 1931-32 as 110-4 f°r population, 116 for
agricultural production and 151 for industrial production.
In other words, during the decade of greatest recorded
increase of population, while population increased by 10-4
per cent., agricultural production increased by 16 per cent,
and industrial production by 51 per cent.

Professor Radhakamal Mukerjee, a confirmed disciple of
Malthus and prophet of woe in his recent “ Food Planning
for Four Hundred Millions ” (1938), is nevertheless com¬
pelled to admit that “ the increase of total agricultural
production has outstripped population growth ” (p. 18),
and to produce figures which confirm this verdict.

68 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

MOVEMENT OF POPULATION AND PRODUCTION
IN INDIA, 1910-1933

(Index Numbers on base of average of 1910-1 1 to 1914-15.)

Popula¬

tion.

All

Crops.

Food

Crops.

Non-Food

Crops.

Industrial

Production.

Average of 1910-

u to 1914-15 .

100

IOO

1932-33 •

1*7

127

134

121

156

(R. Mukerjee, “ Food Planning for Four Hundred Millions ”, 1938,
pp. 17, 27.)

The volume of food crops produced has advanced twice as
fast as population, and the volume of industrial production
three times as fast.

Summing up for the whole three decades 1900-30, Pro¬
fessor Thomas writes :

“ Between 1900 and 1930 population in India increased
by 19 per cent., but production of foodstuffs and raw
materials increased by about 30 per cent., and industrial
production by 189 per cent. During the decade 1921-30
population has indeed made a leap forward; but pro¬
duction has also kept pace. . . . Such progress has been
kept up subsequently, in spite of the trade depression;
the index of industrial production (1928 = 100) stood at
144 in 1934-35, a°d may be higher in the current year.

“ All this indicates that population has not outstripped
production. . . . The alarm about population outstripping
production is not supported by statistics. Those who are
alarmed about the ‘ devastating torrent of babies ’ in
India will do well to direct their attention to improve¬
ments in the distribution of national income, in the quality
of consumption, and in the geographical distribution of
population, and to other allied matters.”

(Professor P.J. Thomas, in The Times , October 24, 1935.)

The verdict of facts thus shows that the cause of poverty
in India cannot be ascribed to the increase of population
going forward more rapidly than the increase in the produc¬
tion of means of subsistence, since the latter increased more
rapidly. The cause of poverty must be sought elsewhere.

This is not to say that the existing production of the means

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 69

of subsistence, under the existing conditions of ownership,
tenure, technique, parasitism and waste of the available
labour forces of the population, is adequate for the needs
of the population. On the contrary, it is grossly inadequate.
Professor Radhakamal Mukerjee, in his book quoted above,
“ Food Planning for Four Hundred Millions ”, has shown
that, while existing food requirements in India may be
estimated at a minimum daily ration of 2,800 calories per
head, existing food supplies, on the basis of 1931 returns,
give 2,337 calories. The total food requirements for all
India in 1935 are estimated by him at 321 ‘5 billion calories,
the actual food supplies in the same year at 280-4 billion
calories — a deficiency of 12-8 per cent., apart from the
question of food exports and maldistribution. In addition,
there is an especially serious shortage of fats, proteins and,
generally, of protective foods. The total milk production,
estimated at 113,000 million pounds weight, is less than half
the minimum required for a balanced diet.

These facts are an indictment of the existing social and
economic organisation, which fails to utilise and develop
the bundant natural resources of India to supply the needs
of the population. But they are not a proof of over-popula¬
tion. On the contrary, it is universally admitted by the
experts that a correct utilisation of Indian resources could
support on an abundant standard a considerably larger
population than exists or is in prospect in any near future
in India. More than one-third of the existing cultivable
area in India has not yet been brought into cultivation;
the existing cultivated area is cultivated under such restricted
primitive conditions as to result in a yield per acre about one-
third of that obtained for a similar crop (comparing wheat
yields) with less man-power in the United Kingdom. The
overcoming of the obstacles which stand in the way of such
a full utilisation of Indian resources is the real heart of the
problem for overcoming Indian poverty.

It is here that the most glaring example of begging the
question is slipped in by the imperialist economists and
apologists, who declare that “ under present conditions ” —
i.e., assuming the existing imperialist and feudal burdens,
moneylenders’ exactions, thwarting of development and
economic disorganisation as god-given natural necessities —

70 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

the existing production is inadequate, and therefore India
is “ over-populated Thus the same Dr. Anstey, whose
impassioned outcry for an “ Indian Malthus ” to dam the
“ devastating torrent of Indian children ” we have already
quoted, calmly presents the argument in the following form :

“ It has been argued that India is not over-populated,
but could advantageously support an even larger population
if the best known means of production, distribution and
consumption were adopted. That an even larger population
could be supported under such conditions is not denied, but this
does not affect the question of what would be the optimum
population. Under present conditions it is practically certain
that a smaller total could produce more per head.”

(V. Anstey, “ Economic Development of India ”,
1936, P- 40 — italics added.)

The catch here lies in the use of the phrase “ under present
conditions ”, which appears like a practical, objective
recognition of facts, but in reality assumes the necessity of
the whole structure of imperialist and landlord exploitation
and its consequences.

In the same way the pompous Royal Commission on
Agriculture in India, with its bulky volumes of Report and
Evidence, was forbidden to enquire into the basic questions
of land ownership, tenure and revenue. Granted this little
assumption, the problem is found to be insoluble, and India
is declared to be “ over-populated

This is the typical Procrustes’ bed of the modern flunkey
economists. If the existing organisation of production under
imperialism is found to be vicious and inefficient to meet the
needs of the population and of its natural increase-— which
admittedly could be met by improved organisation — then
the conclusion is drawn, not that the organisation should be
improved, but that the population should be cut down.
“ Cut off his legs; this man is too long for this bed.”

Dr. Kuczynski, “ the most distinguished living authority
on problems of population ”, in the words of the Conference
Chairman, and the leader of modern statistical economists,
mercilessly exposed this fallacy in relation to India at the
Conference on “ Birth Control in Asia ” at the London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1933 :

THE WEALTH AND THE POVERTY OF INDIA 71

“ We must not look at these things from a static view¬
point. We are told that to-day there are 200 millions of
acres under cultivation in India, and that in order to feed
the population well we need 353 million acres. But why
do we need as many, and under what conditions do we
need them? We need them if we do not apply fertilisers,
if we do not improve agriculture. No person who knows
anything about modern agriculture can deny that we might
have plenty of food for all the Indians on 200 million acres
without even any education of the Indian farmers which
would go beyond what they would easily learn in a year or two.
Just as it is possible to do away with the high mortality in
India by hygienic measures, so it is possible to do away with
the lack of food by the improvement of agriculture.”

Similarly we may recall the judgement of Sir George Watts,
in the “ Memorandum on the Resources of British India ” in
1894 (quoted on p. 43), that in respect of agriculture “ the
productiveness of India might easily be increased by at least
50% ” and that “ few countries in the world can be said to
possess so brilliant an agricultural prospect, if judged of merely
by intrinsic value and extent of undeveloped resources
In this connection interest attaches to the judgement of the
Bengal Census Report for 1931, where the introductory note
discusses the problem of food supply and population :

“ The prospect or even the possibility of so considerable
an increase in a population already one of the densest
in the world may lead to apprehension that the population
of Bengal is rapidly approaching numbers which cannot
be sustained at any reasonable standard of living upon the
means of subsistence which Bengal can produce for long.
... It cannot be denied that a very large part of the popu¬
lation of Bengal lives at a very low level of subsistence,
and that any increase of population must lead to increased
distress unless the potentialities of the province are de¬
veloped. What is suggested here is that these potentialities
are such that pessimism as to the future condition of its
population if considerable increase take place is not neces¬
sarily justified. Like the rest of India Bengal is notable for
its undeveloped resources and the inefficiency with which
such resources as it has are exploited. The soil is unlikely

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

to deteriorate further, and the general opinion about
areas such as Bengal, where scanty manuring necessitates
small crops, is that a dead level of yield was reached long
ago and is conditioned by the rate at which plant food
constituents are made available by weathering. The culti¬
vator in Bengal practically never enriches the soil with any
manure, and the use of manure together with an improve¬
ment in the implements of agriculture which would then
be rendered possible would probably increase enormously
the output of the soil. It has been estimated (G. Clark,
Proceedings of the Seventeenth Indian Science Conference)
that improved methods would result in a reasonable ex¬
pectation of increased food output of thirty per cent, through¬
out the whole of India. There is no doubt that any addi¬
tional labour required under a more intensive form of cultiva¬
tion could be easily obtained since the agriculturist in
Bengal on the whole probably works less than agriculturists
in almost any other part of the world. Subsidiary Table
I also shows that of the total area cultivable only 67 per cent,
is now actually under cultivation. If the total cultivable
area were brought under cultivation, and if improved
methods of cultivation yielding an increase of 30 per cent,
over the present yield were adopted, it is clear from a
simple rule of three calculation that Bengal could support at
its present standard of living a population very nearly twice
as large as that recorded in 1931.”

(Bengal Census Report, 1931, Vol. I, p. 63.)

The decisive difference between India and the European
countries is not in the rate of growth of population, which has
been more rapid in the European countries. What makes the
difference between the conditions of India and Europe is that
the economic development and expansion of production which
have taken place in the European countries, and have facili¬
tated a more rapid growth of population, have not taken place
in India, and have, as we shall see, been artificially arrested
by the workings and requirements of British capitalism,
driving an increasing proportion of the population into depend¬
ence on a primitive and overburdened agriculture. While
the wealth of the country has been drained, while industrial
and other outlets and development have been checked and

A CONTRAST OF TWO WORLDS

thwarted, the agriculture which has been made the over¬
burdened sole source of subsistence for the mass of the people
has itself been placed under crippling conditions and con¬
demned to neglect and deterioration.

Herein, and not in any natural causes outside human agency
or control, nor in any mythical causes of a non-existent
over-population, but in the social-economic conditions under
imperialist rule, lies the secret of the extreme poverty of the
Indian people. The evidence for this will be presented in the
succeeding chapters. The political conclusion to which this
evidence points, the social-political transformation which is
now imperative in India in order to give the Indian people
the means of subsistence, follows inevitably from this analysis.

Chapter IV : A CONTRAST OF
TWO WORLDS

“ The chronic want of food and water, the lack of sanitation and medical
help, the neglect of means of communication, the poverty of educational
provision, the all-pervading spirit of depression that I have myself seen to
prevail in our villages after over a hundred years of British rule make me
despair of its beneficence. It is almost a crime to talk of Soviet Russia in
this country, and yet I cannot but refer to the contrast it presents. I must
confess to the envy with which my admiration was mixed to see the extra¬
ordinary enthusiasm and skill with which the measures for producing food,
providing education and fighting against disease were being pushed
forward in their vast territories. There is no separating line of mistrust or
insulting distinctions between Soviet Europe and Soviet Asia. I am only
comparing the state of things obtaining there and here as I have actually
seen them. And I state my conclusion that what is responsible for our
condition in the so-called British Empire is the yawning gulf between its
dominant and subjugated sections.” — Rabindranath Tagore in 1936.

This initial picture of “ India As It Is and As It Might Be”
may be usefully completed with a practical demonstration.

Until the last two decades it was still possible to argue that
any theoretical condemnation of imperialism for its failure to
develop Indian resources or raise the standards of the people
represented a criticism from a Utopian standpoint and failed
to take into account the overwhelming obstacles in the con¬
ditions of an Asiatic country of extremely low technique with
a vast, backward and mainly illiterate population. Abysmal as

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

are the existing conditions, and as they have to be freely admitted
to be by apologists, nevertheless from such a situation, it is
often pleaded in defence, no more could have been achieved
or could be achieved under any regime.

To-day such a plea can no longer even attempt to lay claim
to validity. The experience of the modem period has en¬
larged the horizon of the possibilities of rapid transformation
even under the most backward conditions. The example
of the revival and regeneration of Turkey since the war is
instructive in this respect, and has its important lessons for
India. But especially the experience of the achievement
of the socialist revolution in the Soviet Union during these
two decades, operating in a vast country of initially backward
technique, extreme disorganisation and a largely illiterate
population, and uniting European and Asiatic peoples, affords
a practical demonstration of what can be done, which is
opening the eyes of the peoples of all countries, and not
least of the people of India. It will be useful to pursue this
comparison with a certain degree of detail, both for the light
it throws on the present stagnant position of India in contrast
with an advancing community, and for the hopeful indication
it holds out of what can be achieved, given the appropriate
social and political conditions.

i . Two Decades of Socialism and of Imperialism

It so happened that the completion of the twentieth year
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1937 fell in the
same year which saw the completion of the one hundred
and eightieth year of British rule in India, if this is dated from
the conventional starting-point of the Battle of Plassey.
Imperialism has thus had nine times as long in India to show
what it can accomplish as socialism has had in Russia.

Vital as have been the differences in the precedent conditions
of these two vast territories (especially the differences between
an independent imperialist country and a colonial country),
there are nevertheless certain features of analogy in the situa¬
tion inherited on either side — the overwhelming illiterate
and backward peasant majority of the population, the im¬
mensity of the territory inhabited by a series of races
and nationalities at differing stages of civilisation, the rich
natural resources relatively undeveloped, the traditions of

A CONTRAST OF TWO WORLDS 75

despotic rule with no experience of democratic forms save for
a decomposing village system — which make it tempting to
compare what imperialism has made of Inda in 180 years and
what socialism has made of Russia in twenty years.

The conception of socialism, or the collective organisation of
production for use, in place of the preceding systems of ex¬
ploitation, is a modern conception sprung from modern con¬
ditions. It is less than a century since this conception passed
from the realm of Utopia into that of a science ; and it is only in
our time that this science has been able to be completed by the
experience of the practical realisation of the new social order.
To-day socialism has been realised in practice. It is therefore
possible to compare, not only in theory, but also in practice the
achievement of imperialism and the achievement of socialism.

For the purpose of this comparison we may take Tsarist
Russia, not in the condition of utter breakdown and disorgan¬
isation in 1917, as it had actually to be taken over by the
new socialist regime, but at its highest point of achievement
in 1 91 3-14, and compare what socialism had made of the
country after twenty years of rule by 1937. We may then take
India similarly on the eve of the war in 1914, and measure
the achievement of imperialism in twenty years by 1934.
Finally, an even more instructive comparison may be drawn
with the Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union, where
all the special difficulties and problems of India were closely
paralleled and the general stage of development of the people
was at the outset far more backward.

Let us begin with the basic test of the development of the
productive forces.

In the Soviet Union the index of industrial production
(of large-scale industry) rose from 100 in 1913 to 816-4 in
1937 — an eightfold increase. This increase — an advance
without parallel in the economic history of any country —
represented not only the decisive industrialisation of Russia,
the establishment of heavy industry and machine production,
independent of foreign capital, as well as light industry,
but the transformation of Russia from a backward country,
which had previously been a “ peasant continent ” with only
partially developed industry under the domination of foreign
capital, into the foremost industrial country of Europe and
the second most powerful industrial country of the world.

76 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

The proportion of the industrial output to the gross national
output rose from 42 per cent, in 1913 to 77 per cent, in 1937 —
that is to say, Russia was transformed from a predominantly
agricultural country into a predominantly industrial country.
The proportion of industrial workers to the total working
population rose from 1 6 per cent, to 3 1 per cent. The national
income rose from 21 thousand million roubles (at 1926-27
prices) in 1913 to 96 thousand million in 1937, or a four and
a half times increase.

For India it is significant at the outset that there is no attempt
at any general statistics or index of industrial production, or
of gross national output or income. An unofficial estimate for
an index of industrial production in the main industries
was attempted in D. B. Meek’s paper on “ Indian External
Trade ” read before the Indian section of the Royal Society
of Arts in April 1936, and reached the result, on the basis
of 100 for the average of the five years 1910-11 to 19 14- 15,
of 156 for 1932-33 — an increase of 56 per cent., or one six¬
teenth the rate of the Soviet increase, from a much lower
initial point. An Industrial Census was taken in 1911 and
1921, though not in 1931; this showed an advance in the
number of workers in “ organised industries ” or establish¬
ments employing over 20 workers from 2-1 million in 191 1 to
2-6 million in 1921, or a rate of increase of 2-4 per cent, per
year, equivalent to 48 per cent, if it were maintained over
twenty years (in fact, the rate of expansion in the war years and
immediately after was not maintained in the later period),
or one-nineteenth the rate of the Soviet increase. The num¬
ber of workers returned as employed in industries in 1 9 1 1 was
17-5 million, and in 1931, 15-3 million, or an absolute decrease
of 12-6 per cent., despite the increase of the population. This
was a reflection of the continuing destruction of petty hand
industry without corresponding growth of modern industry.
In consequence, while the proportion of the population de¬
pendent on agriculture increased from 72 per cent, in 1 9 1 1 to
73 per cent, in 1921, and remained at the same level in 1931,
the proportion of the industrial workers to the total working
population fell from 11-7 per cent, in 1911 to 10 per cent,
in 1931. Such was the “ advance ” achieved in twenty years
by imperialism.

This general picture can be supplemented by a more exact

A CONTRAST OF TWO WORLDS 77

comparison in respect of the most important material products.
Coal output in India rose from 16-4 million tons in 1914 to
22 million in 1934, or an increase of 5^ million tons in twenty
years, representing 34 per cent. Coal output in Russia rose
from 29 million tons in 1913 to 128 million in 1937, or an in¬
crease of 99 million tons, representing 340 per cent., or
exactly ten times as rapid a rate of increase on a larger initial
figure. Steel output, which had only just begun in India
before the war, had not yet reached 1 million tons by 1934-
35 (834,000 tons); in the Soviet Union it had reached 17J
million tons by 1937, representing an increase of over 13
million tons on pre-war. Electric power output rose in
the Soviet Union from 1,900 million kilowatt hours in 1913
to 36,500 million in 1937, a more than eighteenfold increase;
no electrical statistics are available for India, though in 1935
the output was estimated at 2,500 million kilowatt-hours,
or less than one fourteenth the Soviet level, and less than
one-thirtieth the Soviet level per head.

In the sphere of agriculture the contrast is even more strik¬
ing, because of the basic significance of' the transformation for
the overwhelming majority of the population. The poverty-
stricken land-hungry peasantry of Tsarist Russia, at the mercy
of the landlords, the moneylenders and the kulaks, have become
the free and prosperous collective peasantry of to-day, culti¬
vating their large-scale collective farms with the most advanced
machinery and technique of any country in the world, and
already trebling their money income in the first five years since
the completion of collectivisation. While the crop area shows
an increase of one- third on 1913, the grain harvest increased
from 801 million centners in 1913 to 1,202 million in 1937, or an
increase of one half; the output of raw cotton increased from
7-4 million centners in 1913 to 25-8 million in 1937, or an in¬
crease three and a half times. In India the agrarian crisis,
which will be examined in detail in later chapters, becomes
every year more threatening; the combined pressure of the
landlords, the moneylenders and the Government is pauperis¬
ing the peasantry and expropriating growing numbers from
the land ; and while the increase of the sown area and of the
volume of crops has only barely exceeded the growth of popu¬
lation, in the last few years there are ominous signs of an
absolute recession.

78 INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

If we turn from the basic measures of production and the
development of resources to social measures of the State in
promoting education, health and the well-being of the people,
the contrast between imperialism and socialism is no less
overwhelming.

In the field of education the illiteracy of the population which
was deliberately maintained by Tsardom, and extended to
78 per cent, of the population, has been reduced to 8 per cent,
in the Soviet Union; the decree of 1930 established universal
compulsory primary education, and the decree of 1934 carried
this forward to the universal seven-year system of education,
which is being extended, beginning from the big industrial
centres, to the universal ten-year system.

In India illiteracy, which in 1911 extended to 94 per cent,
of the population, in 1931 still extended to 92 per cent. In
twenty years imperialism had diminished illiteracy by one-
fiftieth of the population.

The number of children receiving education in primary
and secondary schools in the Soviet Union in 1937 was 29-4
million (against 7-8 million in Tsarist Russia) or 17-2 per cent,
of the population.

The number of children statistically recorded asreceiving any
sort of education in primary and secondary schools in British
India in 1934-35 was 13-5 million, or 4-9 per cent, of the total
population. But of these an enquiry revealed that two-thirds
of those supposed to be receiving primary education never
passed beyond the first year, and not one-fifth reached the
fourth year supposed to complete the primary education (see
“ Education in India, 1928-29 ”, 1931, p. 28). Thus, the
real figure of those receiving even the limited four-year
primary education laid down is one-fifth of the official statistical
figure of 1 1 * 1 million, or 2-2 million — that is, o-8 per cent, of
the population.

The number of students in universities and higher educa¬
tional institutions in the Soviet Union in 1937 was 551,000
(against 120,000 in Tsarist Russia), equivalent to 3-2 per
thousand of the total population.

The number of students in universities and higher educa¬
tional institutions in British India in 1934—35 was 109,800,
equivalent to 0-4 per thousand of the total population, or
exactly one-eighth of the Soviet proportion.

A CONTRAST OF TWO WORLDS 79

Most striking is the contrast in the sphere of technical train¬
ing, the vital need for developing an undeveloped country.
The vast network of technical secondary schools and factory
schools in the Soviet Union is without any parallel in India.
The number of technical specialists who graduated in the
Soviet Union in the single year 1937 (industrial and building
engineers, transport and communications engineers, engineers
for mechanisation of agriculture and agronomists) was 45,960.
In India the total number graduating in engineering, agri¬
culture or commerce in 1934-35 was 960, or one forty-eighth
of the Soviet total, and, proportionately to population, one
seventy-eighth of the Soviet total.

Taking another measure of cultural development, in re¬
spect of Press and publications, the number of daily news¬
papers in the Soviet Union rose from the 1913 figure of 859
to' 8,521 in 1937, or a tenfold increase, and their daily cir¬
culation from 2 -7 million to 36-2 million, or a fourteenfold
increase. In India the number of newspapers rose from 827
in 1913-14 to 1,748 in 1933-34; the daily circulation is un¬
recorded, but would be very small. The number of copies
of books published in the Soviet Union rose from 86-7 million
in 1913 to 673 million in 1937, or a nearly eightfold increase.
In India the number of books published (no circulation
figures) rose from 12,189 in 1913-14 to 16,763 in 1933-34,
or a minute increase of one-third in twenty years.

If we turn to the field of public health or social provision, the
complete and systematic network of care and provision in the
Soviet Union — without parallel in any country — for the health
and well-being of every citizen from the cradle to the grave,
including medical attention and material provision for all
sickness and accidents, maternity and infant welfare, holidays
with pay, workers’ rest homes, and provision for old age,
stands in staggering contrast with the ocean of neglect in
India, where even the most limited system of social insurance,
as established in normal capitalist countries, is unknown,
where there is no Public Health Act, and provision for the
most elementary needs of public hygiene, sanitation or health
is so low, in respect of the working masses in the towns or in
the villages, as to be practically non-existent.

Expenditure on public health in the Soviet Union (measured
in comparable roubles) rose from 128 million roubles in 1913

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

to 6gg million in ig28, 3,802 million in 1933 and g,050 million
in 1937, or a seventyfold increase. The 9,050 million roubles
in 1937 was equivalent to 53 roubles per head. In India the
administrative changes consequent on the reforms and trans¬
ference of the main burden of public health expenditure to
the Provinces prevent an effective comparison with 1913;
but the combined Central and Provincial expenditure on
public health rose from 47-3 million rupees in 1921-22 to
57-2 million in 1935-36, or from 2-1 per cent, of the gross
total Central and Provincial expenditure in 1921—22 to 2-6
per cent, in 1935-36. The total of 57-2 million rupees in
1 935-36 was equivalent to £4-3 million, or 2| d. per head.

If we take a material common measure of comparison —
the number of hospital beds — we find that in the Soviet
Union the number rose from 138,000 in 1913 to 543,000 in
1937, or 1 Per 313 of the population. In British India the
number (including all institutions, public and private, many
of which would be for Europeans or the services) rose from
48,435 in 1914 to 72,271 in 1934, or 1 per 3,810 of the popula¬
tion — less than one-twelfth the provision in the Soviet Union.

The death rate in Tsarist Russia in 1913 was 28-3 per thous¬
and, or closely similar to the rate in India in 1914 of 30 per
thousand. By 1926 the rate in the Soviet Union had been
brought down to 20-9, while that in India for the same year
was still 26-7. In Moscow the death rate in 1913 was 23-1
per thousand, and in 1926, 13-4. In Bombay the death rate
in 1914 was 32-7 and in 1926, 27-6. Infantile mortality in
Moscow, which in 1913 was 270 per thousand, had by 1928-
29 been brought down to 120 per thousand. In the same year
infantile mortality in Bombay was 255 per thousand.

Or take sanitation and its effect on contagious diseases.
In the Soviet Union typhus has been reduced from 7-3 per
ten thousand of the population in 1913 to 2-o in 1929, a
reduction of 72 per cent. ; diphtheria from 31 -4 per ten thous¬
and to 5 -9, a reduction of 80 per cent. ; and small pox from
4-7 to 0-37, a reduction of 90 per cent. (H. E. Sigerist, “ Social¬
ised Medicine in the Soviet Union ”, p. 357). For India there
are no records for typhus and diphtheria ; but the records of
deaths from small pox afford an instructive comparison. In
1914 there were 76,590 deaths from small pox in India, or
3 -2 per ten thousand of the population. In 1934 there were

A CONTRAST OF TWO WORLDS

83,925 deaths from small pox, or 3-0 per ten thousand of the
population; 1935 showed a slight increase. The stationary
situation of deaths from small pox in India after twenty years
(3-2 and 3-0 per ten thousand) contrasts with the reduction of
cases of small pox in the Soviet Union from 4-7 to 0-37.

The number of doctors in the Soviet Union rose from 19,800
in 1913 to 97,000 in 1937. In India in 1934-35 the total
number of medical graduates who graduated from the uni¬
versities was 630, to which should be added the tiny number
returning from training in England.

If we turn, finally, to labour conditions in the narrower
sense, and choose from this vast field of care and provision in
the Soviet Union only the specimen comparable measure of
hours, we find that the Soviet Union established the universal
eight-hour day in 1922, and in 1927 replaced this by the
universal seven-hour day, with six hours for workers in danger¬
ous trades, underground workers, brain-workers and minors be¬
tween the ages of sixteen and eighteen years ; children under
fourteen are in no conditions allowed to enter into employment,
those between fourteen and sixteen years only in exceptional
circumstances, and for a maximum working time of four hours.

In India the Factories Act of 1922 established the eleven-
hour day, and the Factories Act of 1934 replaced this by the
ten-hour day, with prohibition of employment for children
under twelve. But the number of inspectors is kept so low
(thirty-nine for all India in 1929, according to the Whitley
Commission Report) as to render impossible even an annual
inspection of every factory, with obvious results of evasion,
especially in respect of the employment of children. In addition,
the Factories Act applies to only a small minority of the
industrial workers (i-6 million in 1936, as against 17-7 million
returned in the 1931 census as engaged in industry and trans¬
port). For the overwhelming majority of workers in India
there are no limits of hours, no labour protection or limits of ex¬
ploitation of the youngest children ; and, as noted, the Whitley
Report found children of five working twelve hours a day.

The contrast here set out is in every field a contrast of
hard concrete facts. On the basis of these facts, irrespective of
political viewpoint, the verdict must be given that the contrast
between the Soviet Union and India is the contrast between
civilisation and barbarism.

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

Yet twenty years ago there was no such yawning gulf between
the conditions of the people in Tsarist Russia and British-ruled
India. Twenty years of socialist rule have wrought this trans¬
formation. It is therefore evident that a corresponding
transformation can be achieved in India, given the necessary
political conditions and change in the relation of class forces.

2. The Experience of the Central Asian Repubucs

This comparison is further confirmed by the testimony of the
Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union.

If we compare Tsarist Russia as a whole in 1913 with India
to-day, then it is undoubtedly true, and requires to be borne
in mind, that the initial starting-point for a transformation in
India is in general lower than was the stage of development
of Tsarist Russia in 1913 — although this does not affect the
contrast in the subsequent rate of development (in fact.
Tsarist Russia was retrogressing in the world scale of pro¬
ductive levels in the decade preceding 1913). But this quali¬
fication gives all the more importance to the example of the
Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union, which were
twenty years ago far more backward than India to-day, and
whose present high stage of progress achieved consequently
affords a specially valuable demonstration for India.

If the general contrast between the Soviet Union and
British-ruled India is striking, even more so is the contrast
when we come to these Central Asian Soviet Republics. Here
we are able to see the same process of development in relation
to a much closer approximation to Indian conditions at the
outset, and to all the special difficulties which confront us in
the Indian situation. In these republics the conditions of the
population were far more backward, primitive, oppressed and
poverty-stricken than in India; and all the special problems
associated with the Asiatic economy and Asiatic social con¬
ditions, the position of women, religion, etc., were present in an
extreme form. Here, therefore, we can see as nowhere else
the contrast between imperialist colonial policy and the
policy of socialism in relation to backward peoples.

The three Central Asian Soviet Socialist Republics, which
are united as equal self-governing republics in the seven
Soviet Socialist Republics composing the U.S.S.R., comprise
Turkmenistan, with an area of 171,000 square miles and a

A CONTRAST OF TWO WORLDS 83

population of i £ millions ; Uzbekistan, with an area of 66,ooo
square miles and a population of 5 millions ; and Tajikistan,
with an area of 55,000 square miles and a population of
millions. Closely associated with these lie the Kara-Kalpak
Autonomous Republic and the Kirghiz Autonomous Republic.
These five Republics lie south of Kazakhstan and close to the
borders of India.

“ To the south of Kazakhstan lies Central Asia — five
socialist republics, whose names speak of the nationalities
which inhabit them : the Uzbek, Turkmen, Tajik, Kirghiz,
and Kara-Kalpak Republics.

“ This is the extreme south of the U.S.S.R. Here the
country borders on Persia, Afghanistan, and West China.
India begins 15 kilometres from the frontier of Central Asia.

“ Before the Revolution Central Asia was a land of semi¬
slave and colonial labour. Now it has become a land of
equal nationalities, socialist agriculture and newly created
industry.”

(Mikhailov, “Soviet Geography”, 1937, pp. 6-7.)

Let us begin with an examination of Tajikistan, which lies
within a few miles of India. In the past the life of the Tajik
people was not a happy one. Up to the revolution they were
under the yoke of Tsarist Russia and the feudal theocratic
despotism of the Emir of Bokhara. The civil wars which
followed the break-up of the Tsarist Entpire were not finally
ended till 1925; in 1925 Tajikistan became an autonomous
Republic, and in 1929, it entered the U.S.S.R. as an independ¬
ent federated Republic.

The extreme backwardness in which Tsarism had held the
Tajik people can be seen from the fact that before the revolu¬
tion only one half of 1 per cent, of the population could read
and write (as against 6 per cent, literate in India in 1 91 1 ) .
By 1933 60 per cent, were literate (as against 8 per cent, in
India in 1931). By 1936 the Republic had 3,000 schools (or
1 per 500 of the population), five higher educational institu¬
tions and over thirty technical schools. By 1939 there were
328,000 school pupils (as against 100 in 1914), with twenty-one
higher educational institutions.

The total sown area in 1924 was 1,005,000 acres. By 1936
it was 1,626,000 acres, the main crop being cotton. The

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

overwhelming majority of the peasant households have
adopted the collective method of cultivation. The processes
of cotton-growing have been largely mechanised. Ploughing,
sowing, etc., are mostly done by tractors. Of especial
interest is the development of irrigation :

“ The growth of the cotton area here depended a great
deal on irrigation. In 1929 Tajikistan spent 3 million
roubles in round figures on irrigation; in 1930, 12 million
roubles, and the budget for 1931 was 61 million, i.e., 50 per
inhabitant. And most of the money was obtained, not from
taxing the local population, but from sums granted by the
Central Government of the Soviet Union.”

(J. Kunitz, “ Dawn Over Samarkand ”, 1935, p. 235.)

This contrasts with the slow and stingy development of
irrigation in India, and even neglect and allowing to fall
into disrepair of previous irrigation work; while, where the
extremely limited new irrigation work has been carried out
(extension of the total irrigated area from 46-8 million acres
in 1913-1410 50-5 million in 1933-34), it has only been carried
out on a basis of capital investment demanding a high rate of
return, averaging over 7 per cent., thus imposing heavy
additional burdens on the peasantry and placing the benefits
beyond the reach of the poor peasants.

Even more significant is the rapid industrial development
where previously industry was unknown. There is no question
under socialism of the former colonial regions being held back
as agrarian hinterlands, while modern industry is concen¬
trated, as previously, in the privileged “ metropolitan ”
areas. On the contrary, the most active steps are taken to
promote and favour especially industrial development in the
previously backward regions.

“ Up to the revoludon Tajikistan possessed ho industries
whatever. To-day it has preserving factories and silk fact¬
ories, all built within the last few years. . . . The Varzobsk
electric power station now being completed will supply
power to the industrial enterprises of the town. . . . Clothing
factories are working at full pressure in Stalinabad and a big
silk combine in Leninabad. The building was com¬
menced this year of a big textile combine, a meat combine,
a brewery and a cement factory. Two brick factories are in

A CONTRAST OF TWO WORLDS 85

operation and two oil factories, ten cotton-cleaning fac¬
tories, ten printing works, etc.”

(U.S.S.R. Trade Delegation in Britain “ Monthly
Review ”, October 1936, p. 552.)

Before the revolution Tajikistan was devoid of modern roads.
During the first Five-Year Plan Tajikistan built 181 kilo¬
metres of railway and 12,000 kilometres of surfaced roads,
6,000 kilometres of which are excellent motor roads.

Or take public health. In 1914 there were thirteen
doctors in Tajikistan; in 1939 there were 440. In 1914 there
were 100 hospital beds for the whole population; in 1939
there were 3,675. In 1914 there were no maternity beds in
maternity homes and hospitals; in 1937 there were 240. In
1914 there were no maternity and infant welfare centres;
in 1937 there were thirty-six.

The sense of abounding new life of the Tajik people under
socialism is expressed in the following song of the Tajik
collective farmer, quoted byjoshua Kunitz in his “ Dawn Over
Samarkand ” :

“ My breath is free and warm
when I see our dry plain being ploughed,
when I see a finished dam,

and when I see with me who strive for this new life,

I am pleased as a father is with his own son.

I cannot help but cry : ‘ Hail ! all new men,’
when I see my son driving a machine along the field,
when I see a plough that’s piercing root and soil,

I cannot help but cry : ‘ Glory to those who labour ! ’

When I am threatened ‘ The old world will return,’

I fall to the ground and freeze in fear.

Give me a gun, comrade ; give me some bullets.

I’ll go to battle ; I shall defend my land, my soviet land.”

Let us turn to Uzbekistan, the largest of these Republics,
with 5J million population. Before the revolution only
3-5 per cent, were literate. By 1932 there were 531,000
pupils in elementary schools and 130,000 in secondary
schools, as well as 710,000 learning in institutions for the
liquidation of illiteracy. In addition to the rapid develop¬
ment of collective agriculture, industry was carried forward

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

from an output of 269 million roubles in 1913 to 1,175 million
in 1936, and electrical output from 34 million units in 1928
to 230 million in 1936. Industry included fifty-one cotton¬
spinning factories, coal-mining, a large works for the manufac¬
ture of agricultural machinery (in Tashkent), a cement
factory, a sulphur mine, an oxygen factory, a paper mill, a
leather factory and clothing factories. Between 1914 and 1937
the number of doctors increased from 128 to 2,185. Before the
revolution this country had not even an alphabet of its own.
This difficulty was solved by the new latinised alphabet. By
1935 there were 118 newspapers in the Republic, in five
languages, with an annual circulation of over 100 million copies.

How is the financial cost of this gigantic transformation met?
The answer to this question throws the most revealing light
on the contrast between imperialist methods of colonial
exploitation of backward peoples and the equal co-operative
relations of nations under socialism. Under imperialism a
vast annual tribute is drawn from the poverty-stricken
backward peoples under colonial domination to the wealthy
exploiting class of the possessing Powers. Under socialism
the extra cost involved in rapidly helping forward the backward
peoples is met by allotting to them a disproportionate share
of the total U.S.S.R. budget expenditure, so that in this
transitional period they receive more than they give (and
receive freely, without piling up any load of debt). The
following table shows the budget expenditure per head for the
various Soviet Republics in 1927-28 :

SOVIET REPUBLICS’ BUDGET EXPENDITURE PER
HEAD IN 1927-28
(in roubles)

Purpose.

R.S.F.S.R.

Government
Economic-adminis¬
trative depart-

069

ments . .

Social -cultural

i-oS

needs . . 1

Financing national 1

2-16

economy .
Transferred to local

1 65

budgets .

5'87

Other expenditure

0-04

Total .

II'76

556

10 84 ; 13-14

19-13 I 14-48 22-23

A CONTRAST OF TWO WORLDS 87

It will be seen that in all fundamental items the most
powerful republics — the Russian and the Ukrainian — fall
behind the other republics. The Union assumes the care of
quickening the cultural and economic progress of the backward
national States.

The same picture is shown by the most recent Soviet Union
Budget for 1939. While the aggregate budget for the entire
Union and Republics together showed an increase of 12-4
per cent, over the previous year, the budget for Kazakhstan
increased by 20- 1 per cent., and that for Turkmenistan by 22-4
per cent. While the budget of the Russian Soviet Republic
received 18 -8 per cent, of the revenues derived in its territories,
the budget of Tajikistan received 100 per cent. Social and
cultural expenditure during the decade from 1928-29 to 1939
increased twenty- five times for the Soviet Union as a whole;
for Turkmenistan it increased twenty-nine times, and for
Kazakhstan thirty-one times. New industrial construction
revealed the same special attention to the territories of the
national minorities. Thus, while the total budget of Kazakh¬
stan amounted to 1,513 million roubles, no less than 509
million roubles were allocated from Union funds for the con¬
struction of the giant Balkhash copper-smelting works in its
territories; Karaganda represents now’ the third coal basin
of the U.S.S.R. ; and the lead works of Tchimkent and
Riddersk supply three-quarters of the lead production of the
U.S.S.R.

In this way is consciously carried out the new distribution
of industry under socialism. Previously in the Tsarist
Empire, as Mikhailov points out in his “ Soviet Geography ”,
industry was unevenly distributed over the vast territories of
the Empire. Fully half of the output of Russian industry
was concentrated in the area of the present Moscow, Lenin¬
grad, Ivanov region, etc. On the economic map this region
appeared as an island. It was here that industrial capital
originated and developed, radiating from here the tentacles
of Tsarist conquest and holding the huge lands of agriculture
and raw materials subject to the industrial centre. Manu¬
facture was separated at great distances from raw materials.
Social labour was thereby wasted, but the colonies bore the
expense. “ The Uzbek, the producer of cotton, was not paid
a fair price, and he also paid exorbitant sums for the finished

INDIA AS IT IS AND AS IT MIGHT BE

fabric. . . . The hands of the ruined handicraftsmen were
cheaper than electricity.”

Planned socialist production introduced the new principles
of the distribution of industry along lines of co-operative
development and equality of nations :

“ Planned socialist production and distribution excluded
competition from the centre. In the place of the old pro¬
hibitory laws there grew up the policy of industrial and
cultural development of the national outlying districts.

“ All the people inhabiting the U.S.S.R. have equal rights.
Equality de jure of all the nationalities was established in the
very first days of the Russian Revolution. But in order to
destroy inequality de facto it is necessary to destroy the
economic backwardness of the population of the former
colonies of Russia.”

(N. Mikhailov, “ Soviet Geography ”, 1935, p. 51.)

So the principle was proclaimed by Stalin at the Twelfth
Congress of the Russian Communist Party in 1923 :

“ Apart from schools and language, the Russian pro¬
letariat must take every measure to establish centres of
industry in the border regions, in the Republics which are
culturally backward — backward not through any fault of
their own, but because they were formerly looked upon as
sources of raw materials.”

(Stalin, Report on the National Question to the Twelth
Congress of the Russian Communist Party, April, I923.)

We see here the contrast between imperialist colonial
exploitation and the socialist realisation of the equality of
nations, with the most backward rapidly helped forward to the
level of the most advanced.

The picture of this equality and rapid advance of the Central
Asian Soviet Republics cannot but give cause for furious
thought to the Indian people. It is a picture which inevitably
arouses bitter comparison with the stagnation and exploitation
of India under imperialism. But it is a picture which also
holds out glowing hope and confidence for the future advance
which can be equally achieved in India, when the imperialist
yoke has been thrown off and the Indian working people have
become masters of their own country.

PART II

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

Chapter V. THE SECRET OF INDIAN POVERTY

1 Marx on India

2 The Shattering of the Indian Village Economy

3 The Destructive Role of British Rule in India

4 The “ Regenerating ” Role of British Rule in India

Chapter VI. BRITISH RULE IN INDIA— THE OLD
BASIS

1 The Plunder of India

2 India and the Industrial Revolution

3 Industrial Devastation

Chapter VII. MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA

1 The Transition to Finance-Capital

2 Finance-Capital and India

3 The Question of Industrialisation.

4 Setbacks to Industrialisation

5 The Balance-Sheet of Twenty Years

6 The Stranglehold of Finance-Capital

7 Finance-Capital and the New Constitution

8 The Outcome of Imperialism in India

Chapter V : THE SECRET OF
INDIAN POVERTY

“ There yet remains a class, the general one,

Which has no merit, and pretends to none ;

Good easy folk who know that eels are eels,

But never pause to think how skinning feels,

Content to know that eels are made to flay,

And Indians formed by destiny to pay . . .

And hence when they become the great and high,

There is no word they hate so much as — Why? ”

“ India ” : A Poem in Three Cantos. By a Young Civilian of
Bengal. London , 1 834.

In order to understand the role of imperialism in India
it is necessary to cover certain historical ground.

During recent years the real history of British rule in India
is beginning to be disinterred from the official wrappings.
But it still remains true, as Sir William Hunter, the editor of
the Imperial Gazetteer of India , declared in 1897 :

“ A true history of the Indian people under British rule
has still to be pieced together from the archives of a hundred
distant record rooms, with a labour almost beyond the
powers of any single man, and at an expense almost beyond
the reach of any ordinary private fortune.”

What Lord Rosebery said of the Irish question, that “ it has
never passed into history, for it has never passed out of
politics ”, applies no less to India. Only when the Indians
have won tbeir independence is the serious study of Indian
history likely to be undertaken from a standpoint other than
that of the conquerors.

For our present purposes we are not concerned to follow
in any detail the chronicle of British rule in India, which
would require a separate volume for any useful treatment,
and the conventional facts of which can be studied in any of
the current standard works. We are only concerned to bring
out some of the decisive forces of development which underlie
the present situation and its problems.

The past is past. The record of British rule in India, when
truthfully told, is not an edifying record. It is important that

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

Englishmen should be acquainted with some of the facts of
that record (which are normally suppressed from the school¬
books) in order to free themselves from imperialist prejudice ;
and it is important that Indians should be acquainted with
them in order to equip themselves as uncompromising fighters
for Indian freedom. But nothing is to be gained by dwelling
on the past or centring national propaganda on the recital of
past injustices or grievances. Oppressors and oppressed of
the past are alike long dead; and if the bones of the Indian
weavers, in the famous words of a Governor-General, were
bleaching the plains of India in 1834, to-day the bones of the
Governor-General are in no better case in the family mauso¬
leum. The burning question to-day is the present oppression
and the path of liberation. We are only concerned with the
past in order to bring to light the dynamic forces which
still live in the present.

The first to bring this dynamic approach to Indian history,
to turn the floodlight of scientific method on to the social
driving forces of Indian development both before and after
British rule, and to lay bare alike the destructive role of British
rule in India and its regenerative or revolutionising significance
for the future, was the founder of modern socialism, Karl
Marx. He accomplished this work — among his most im¬
portant work for the future of humanity — in the middle of
the nineteenth century. For over half a century it lay buried
and almost unknown, even when the main fields of his work
had become known throughout the world. Only in the past
quarter of a century is their content beginning to become more
widely familiar among students and increasingly to influence
current thought on Indian questions. To-day modern his¬
torical research is increasingly confirming the main outlines
of their approach.

1. Marx on India

Thirteen years ago a leading English socialist writer could
still put out the view that “ the effort to read the problem of
India in the set terms of Marxism is rather an exercise in
ingenuity than a serious intellectual contribution to socialist
advance ” (H. Laski, “ Communism ”, 1927, p. 194).

This unawareness that Marx had continuously devoted
some of his leading thought and work to India was typical

THE SECRET OF INDIAN POVERTY 93

of the limitations of Western European socialist thought. In
fact, the well-known articles of Marx on India, written as a
series in 1853, are among the most fertile of his writings, and
the starting-point of modern thought on the questions covered.
A fuller study of Marx’s writings would show how con¬
tinuously he had in the forefront of attention the distinctive
problems of Asiatic economy, especially in India and China,
the effects of the impact of European capitalism upon it, and
the conclusions to be drawn for the future of world develop¬
ment as well as for the emancipation of the Indian and
Chinese peoples. This close attention is instanced by some
fifty references to India in “ Capital ”, and the considerably
larger number of references in the Marx-Engels corre¬
spondence. •

Immediately after the “ Communist Manifesto ” (in which
Marx and Engels had called attention to the importance of the
opening of the Indian and Chinese markets for the develop¬
ment of capitalist production), and the collapse of the 1848
revolutionary wave, Marx concentrated his attention on the
' reasons underlying that collapse, and found them above all in
the new expansion of capitalism outside Europe, into Asia,
Australia and California. This line of thought, which was
already touched on in a letter of Engels in 1852 (letter of
Engels to Marx, August 21, 1852), received further sharp
expression in a latter in 1858:

“ We cannot deny that bourgeois society has been for
a second time living through its sixteenth century, a six¬
teenth century which I hope will sound its death-knell as
surely as the first brought it into life. The special task of
bourgeois society is the establishment of the world market,
at any rate in its main outlines, and of a production upon
this basis. Since the world is round, this process appears
to have reached its completion with the colonisation of
California and Australia and the opening up of China and
Japan. The weighty question for us now is this : On the
Continent the revolution is imminent, and will from the
first take on a socialist character. But will it not inevitably
be crushed in this small corner, since the movement of
bourgeois society is still ascendant on a far wider area? ”
(Marx, letter to Engels, October 8, 1858.)

94 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

Here, in this understanding of the significance of the extra-
European expansion of capitalism for the perspective of the
development of capitalism and the socialist revolution in
Europe, lay the key thought which Marx had grasped in the
eighteen-fifties, but which the main body of European socialism
has only slowly begun to realise in the recent period.

In 1853, when the renewal of the East India Company’s
charter came for the last time before Parliament, Marx
wrote a series of eight articles on India for the New York
Daily Tribune. These, taken in conjunction with “ Capital ”
and the references in the Correspondence, give the kernel of
Marx’s thought on India.

2. The Shattering of the Indian Village Economy
Marx’s analysis starts from the characteristics of “ Asiatic
economy ”, which the impact of capitalism for the first time
overthrew. “ The key to the whole East ”, wrote Engels to
Marx in June, 1853, “is the absence of private property in land.”
But this absence of private property in land is not originally
different from the primitive starting-point of European
economy ; the difference lies in the subsequent development.

“ A ridiculous presumption has gained currency of late
to the effect that common property in its primitive form
is specifically a Slavonian or even exclusively Russian form.
It is the primitive form which we can prove to have existed
among Romans, Teutons and Celts ; and of which numerous
examples are still to be found in India, though in a partly
ruined state. A closer study of the Asiatic, especially of
Indian forms of communal ownership, would show how
from the different forms of primitive communism different
forms of its dissolution have developed. Thus, for example,
the various original types of Roman and Teutonic private
property can be traced back to various forms of Indian
communism.”

(Marx, “ Critique of Political Economy ”, ch. 1.)

Why, then, did primitive communism in the East not develop
to landed property and feudalism, as in the West? Engels
suggests that the answer is to be found in climatic and geo¬
graphical conditions :

“ How comes it that the Orientals did not reach to landed

THE SECRET OF INDIAN POVERTY 95

property or feudalism? I think the reason lies principally
in the climate, combined with the conditions of the soil,
especially the great desert stretches which reach from the
Sahara right through Arabia, Persia, India and Tartary to
the highest Asiatic uplands. Artificial irrigation is here the
first condition of cultivation, and this is the concern either of
the communes, the Provinces or the Central Government.”

(Engels, letter to Marx, June 6, 1853.)

The conditions of cultivation were not compatible with private
property in land, and so arose the typical “ Asiatic economy ”
of the remains of primitive communism in the village system
below, and the despotic Central Government above, in charge
of irrigation and public works, alongside war and plunder.

The understanding of the village system is thus the key to
the understanding of India. The classic description of the
village system is contained in “ Capital ” :

“ Those small and extremely ancient Indian communities,
some of which have continued down to this day, are based
on possession in common of the land, on the blending of
agriculture and handicrafts, and on an unalterable division
of labour, which serves, whenever a new community is
started, as a plan and scheme ready cut and dried. Occupy¬
ing areas of from 100 up to several thousand acres, each forms
a compact whole producing all that it requires. The chief
part of the products is destined for direct use by the com¬
munity itself, and does not take the form of a commodity.
Hence, production here is independent of that division of
labour brought about, in Indian society as a whole, by
means of the exchange of commodities. It is the surplus
alone that becomes a commodity, and a portion of even
that, not until it has reached the hands of the State, into
whose hands from time immemorial a certain quantity of
these products has found its way in the shape of rent in kind.

“ The constitution of these ancient communities varies
in different parts of India. In those of the simplest form,
the land is tilled in common, and the produce divided
among the members. At the same time, spinning and
weaving are carried on in each family as subsidiary in¬
dustries. Side by side with the masses thus occupied with one
and the same work, we find the ‘ chief inhabitant who

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

is judge, police and tax-gatherer in one ; the book-keeper
who keeps the accounts of the tillage and registers every¬
thing relating thereto; another official, who prosecutes
criminals, protects strangers travelling through, and
escorts them to the next village; the boundary man, who
guards the boundaries against neighbouring communities;
the water-overseer, who distributes the water from the
common tanks for irrigation; the Brahmin, who conducts
the religious services; the schoolmaster, who on the sand
teaches the children reading and writing; the calendar-
Brahmin, or astrologer, who makes known the lucky or
unlucky days for seed-time and harvest, and for every other
kind of agricultural work; a smith and a carpenter, who
make and repair all the agricultural implements; the
potter, who makes all the pottery of the village ; the barber,
the washerman, who washes clothes, the silversmith, here
and there the poet, who in some communities replaces the
silversmith, in others the schoolmaster. This dozen of indi¬
viduals is maintained at the expense of the whole community.
If the population increases, a new community is founded,
on the pattern of the old one, on unoccupied land. . . .

“ The simplicity of the organisation for production in
these self-sufficing communities that constantly reproduce
themselves in the same form, and when accidentally destroyed,
spring up again on the spot and with the same name— this
simplicity supplies the key to the secret of the unchangeable¬
ness of Asiatic societies, an unchangeableness in such striking
contrast with the constant dissolution and refounding of
Asiatic States, and the never-ceasing changes of dynasty.
The structure of the economical elements of society remains
untouched by the storm-clouds of the political sky.”

(Marx, “ Capital ”, Vol. I, ch. xiv, section 4.)

This is the traditional Indian economy which was shattered
in its foundations by the onset of foreign capitalism, repre¬
sented by British rule. Herein the British conquest differed
from every previous conquest, in that, while the previous
foreign conquerors left untouched the economic basis and
eventually grew into its structure, the British conquest
shattered that basis and remained a foreign force, acting from
outside and withdrawing its tribute outside. Herein also the

THE SECRET OF INDIAN POVERTY 97

victory of foreign capitalism in India differed from the
victory of capitalism in Europe, in that the destructive
process was not accompanied by any corresponding growth
of new forces. From this arises the “ particular melancholy ”
attaching to the misery of the Indian under British rule, who
finds himself faced with “ the loss of his old world, with no 4 •
gain of a new one

“ There cannot remain any doubt but that the misery
inflicted by the British on Hindostan is of an essentially
different and infinitely more intensive kind than all
Hindostan had to suffer before. I do not allude to
European despotism, planted upon Asiatic despotism,
by the British East India Company, forming a more
monstrous combination than any of the divine monsters
starding us in the Temple of Salsette. . . .

“ All the civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests,
famines, strangely complex, rapid and destructive as their
successive action in Hindostan may appear, did not go
deeper than its surface. England has broken down the
whole framework of Indian society, without any symptoms
of reconstruction yet appearing. This loss of his old
world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular
kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo,
and separates Hindostan, ruled by Britain, from all its
ancient traditions and from the whole of its past history.”

(Marx, “ The British Rule in India ”, New York Daily
Tribune, June 25, 1853.)

3. The Destructive Role of British Rule in India

How this destructive role was accomplished, Marx traced
with careful attention, distinguishing between the earlier
period of the monopoly of the East India Company up toi
1813, and the later period, after 1813, when the monopoly
was broken and the invasion of industrial capitalist manu¬
factures overran India and completed the work.

In the earlier period the initial steps of destruction were
accomplished, first, by the Company’s colossal direct plunder
(“ during the whole course of the eighteenth century, the
treasures transported from India to England were gained
much less by the comparatively insignificant commerce,
than by the direct exploitation of that country and by the

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

colossal fortunes extorted and transmitted to England ”) ;
second, by the neglect of irrigation and public works, which
had been maintained under previous governments and were
now allowed to fall into neglect ; third, by the introduction
of the English landed system, private property in land, with
sale and alienation, and the whole English criminal code ;
and fourth, by the direct prohibition or heavy duties on the
import of Indian manufactures, first into England, and later
also to Europe.

All this, however, did not yet give “the final blow”. That
came with the era of nineteenth-century capitalism.

The monopoly of the East India Company had been
closely associated with the financial oligarchy which finally
established its power with the Whig Revolution :

“ The true commencement of the East India Company
cannot be dated from a more remote epoch than the year
1702, when the different societies, claiming the monopoly
of the East India trade, united together in one single
company. Till then, the very existence of the original
East India Company was repeatedly endangered, once
suspended for years under the protectorate of Cromwell,
and once threatened with utter dissolution by Parlia¬
mentary interference under the reign of William III.

“ It was under the ascendancy of that Dutch Prince,
when the Whigs became the farmers of the revenues of
the British Empire, when the Bank of England sprang
into life, when the protective system was formally estab¬
lished in England, and the Balance of Power in Europe
was definitely settled, that the existence of an East India
Company was recognised by Parliament. That era of
apparent liberty was in reality the era of monopolies, not
created by Royal Grants, as in the times of Elizabeth and
Charles I, but authorised and nationalised by the sanction
of Parliament.”

(Marx, “ The East India Company, Its History and
Outcome ”, New York Daily Tribune, July 11, 1853.)

Against this monopoly the English manufacturing interests,
who demanded and secured the exclusion of Indian manu¬
factures, and the other English trading interests, who found
themselves excluded from the lucrative Indian trade, carried

THE SECRET OF INDIAN POVERTY 99

on ceaseless agitation. This struggle underlay the fall of
Fox’s Government in 1783 over the India Bill, which sought
to abolish the Courts of Directors and Proprietors of the
Company, and the subsequent long-drawn battle of the im¬
peachment of Hastings from 1786 to 1795. But it was not
until the completion of the Industrial Revolution had brought
English manufacturing capitalism to the forefront that the
monopoly was overthrown in 1813 and its final abolition
completed in 1833.

It was only after 1813, with the invasion of English in¬
dustrial manufactures, that the decisive wrecking of the Indian
economic structure took place. The effects of this wrecking
during the first half of the nineteenth century Marx traced
with formidable facts. Between 1780 and 1850 the total
British exports to India rose from £386,152 to £8,024,000,
or from one thirty-second part to one-eighth of British ex¬
ports; while the cotton manufacture in 1850, for which the
Indian market provided one-fourth of the foreign markets,
employed one-eighth of the population of Britain and con¬
tributed one-twelfth of the whole national revenue.

“ From 1818 to 1836 the export of twist from Great
Britain to India rose in the proportion of 1 to 5,200. In
1824 the export of British muslins to India hardly amounted
to 6,000,000 yards, while in 1837 it surpassed 64,000,000
yards. But at the same time the population of Dacca
decreased from 150,000 inhabitants to 20,000. This
decline of Indian towns celebrated for their fabrics was
by no means the worst consequence. British steam and
science uprooted, over the whole surface of Hindostan, the
union between agricultural and manufacturing industry.”

(Marx, “ The British Rule in India ”, New York Daily
Tribune , June 10, 1853.)

“ The English cotton machinery produced an acute
effect in India. The Governor-General reported in
1834-5 : ‘ The misery hardly finds a parallel in the history

of commerce. The bones of the cotton-weavers are
bleaching the plains of India.’ ”

(Marx, “ Capital ”, Vol. I, ch. xv, section 5.)

The village system had been built on “ the domestic
union of agricultural and manufacturing pursuits ”. “ The

100

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

handloom and the spinning-wheel were the pivots of the
structure of the old Indian society.” But “ it was the British
intruder who broke up the Indian handloom and de¬
stroyed the spinning-wheel Thereby Britain produced “ the
greatest, and, to speak the truth, the only social revolution
ever heard of in Asia This revolution not only destroyed
the old manufacturing towns, driving their population to
crowd the villages, but destroyed the balance of economic
life in the villages. From this arose the desperate over¬
pressure on agriculture, which has continued on a cumulative
scale right up to the present day. At the same time the
merciless extraction of the maximum revenue from the
cultivators, without giving any return for necessary expansion
and works (out of £ ig, 300,000 revenue in 1850-1, only
£166,390 or o-8 per cent, was returned as spent on Public
Works of any kind), prevented agricultural development.

“ This rent may assume dimensions which seriously
threaten the reproduction of the conditions of labour, of
the means of production. It may render an expansion
of production more or less impossible, and grind the direct
producers down to the physical minimum of means of
subsistence. This is particularly the case, when this
form is met and exploited by a conquering industrial
nation, as India is by the English.”

(Marx, “ Capital ”, Vol. Ill, ch. xlvii, section 3.)

The “ tribute ” exacted by Britain from India is estimated
by Marx in the following terms :

“ India alone has to pay £5 million in tribute for ‘ good
government ’, interest and dividends of British capital,
etc., not counting the sums sent home annually by officials
as savings of their salaries, or by English merchants as a
part of their profit in order to be invested in England.”

(Marx, “ Capital ”, Vol. Ill, ch. xxxv, section 4.)

Does Marx shed tears over the fall of the village system
and the destruction of the old basis of Indian society? Marx
saw the infinite suffering caused by the bourgeois social revolu¬
tion, as in every country, and all the greater in India on
account of its being carried through under such conditions.
But he saw also the deeply reactionary character of that

THE SECRET OF INDIAN POVERTY 101

village system, and the indispensable necessity of its destruc¬
tion if mankind is to advance. In burning words he de¬
scribes the degradation of humanity involved in those
“ idyllic village communities ”, and his words lose none of
their force to-day for those who, in India as in Europe, seek
to look backwards instead of forwards, and in India seek to
fight British rule by appealing for the revival of the vanished
pre-British India of the spinning-wheel and the handloom.

“ Sickening as it must be to human feeling to witness
those myriads of industrious, patriarchal and inoffensive
social organisations disorganised and dissolved into their
units, thrown into a sea of woes, and their individual
members losing at the same time their ancient form of
civilisation and their hereditary means of subsistence,
we must not forget that these idyllic village communities,
inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the
solid foundation of Oriental despotism, that they restrained
the human mind within the smallest possible compass,
making it the unresisting tool of superstition, enslaving it
beneath traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur
and historical energies.

“ We must not forget the barbarian egoism which,
concentrating on some miserable patch of land, had
quietly witnessed the ruin of empires, the perpetration
of unspeakable cruelties, the massacre of the population
of large towns, with no other consideration bestowed
upon them than on natural events, itself the helpless prey
of any aggressor who deigned to notice it at all.

“ We must not forget that this stagnatory, undignified
and vegetative life, that this passive sort of existence
evoked on the other hand, in contradistinction, wild,
aimless, unbounded forces of destruction and rendered
murder itself a religious rite in Hindostan.

“ We must not forget that these little communities were
contaminated by distinctions of caste and by slavery,
that they subjugated man to external circumstances instead
of elevating man the sovereign of circumstances, that they
transformed a self-developing social state into never-changing
natural destiny, and thus brought about a brutalising wor¬
ship of nature, exhibiting its degradation in the fact that

102

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on his knees in
adoration of Hanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the cow.”

(Marx, “ The British Rule in India ”.)

Therefore, although Marx describes British economy in
India as “ swinish ” (in a letter to Engels on June 14, 1853),
he sees at the same time in the British conquest “ the
unconscious tool of history ” :

“ England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in
Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and
was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is
not the question. The question is: can mankind fulfil
its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social
state of Asia ? If not, whatever may have been the crimes
of England, she was the unconscious tool of history in
bringing about that revolution.” (ibid.)

4. The “Regenerating” Role of British Rule in India
England, in Marx’s view, had “ a double mission in India :
one destructive, the other regenerating — the annihilation
of the old Asiatic society, and the laying of the material
foundations of Western society in Asia So far, the de¬
structive side had been mainly visible ; nevertheless, the work
of regeneration had begun.

“ The British were the first conquerors superior, and
therefore inaccessible, to Hindoo civilisation. They de¬
stroyed it by breaking up the native communities, by
uprooting the native industry, and by levelling all that was
great and elevated in the native society. The historic pages
of their rule in India report hardly anything beyond that
destruction. The work of regeneration hardly transpires
through a heap of ruins. Nevertheless it has begun.”

(Marx, “ The Future Results of British Rule in India ”,
New York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853.)

Wherein did Marx see the beginnings of such “ regenera¬
tion ” ? He enumerates a series of indications :

(1) “political unity . . . more consolidated and ex¬
tending further than ever it did under the Great Moguls ”,
and destined to be “ strengthened and perpetuated by the
electric telegraph ” ;

THE SECRET OF INDIAN POVERTY

103

(2) the “ native army ” (this was before its disbandment
after the Revolt of 1857, and the consequent deliberate,
strengthening of British forces to one-third of the whole,
and the strengthening of British military control) ;

(3) “ the free press, introduced for the first time into
Asiatic society ” (this was following the proclamation of
the freedom of the press in India in 1835, and before the
series of Press Acts, begun in 1873, and steadily strengthened
in the modern period of declining imperialist rule) ;

(4) the establishment of “ private property in land — the
great desideratum of Asiatic society ” ;

(5) the building up, however reluctantly and sparingly,
of an educated Indian class “ endowed with the require¬
ments for government and imbued with European science ” ;

(6) “ regular and rapid communication with Europe ”
through steam transport.

More importantthan all thesewas the inevitable consequence
of industrial capitalist exploitation of India. In order to
develop the Indian market, it was essential to secure the
“ transformation of India into a reproductive country ” —
that is, into a source of raw materials to export- in exchange
for the imported manufactured goods. This made necessary
the development of railways, roads and irrigation. This new
phase was only beginning at the time when Marx wrote. From
the consequences of this new development Marx made the
prophecy which is the most famous of his declarations on India :

“ I know that the English millocracy intend to endow
India with railways with the exclusive view of extracting
at diminished expenses the cotton and other raw materials
for their manufactures. But when you have once intro¬
duced machinery into the locomotion of a country, which
possesses iron and coals, you are unable to withhold it
from its fabrication. You cannot maintain a net of rail¬
ways over an immense country without introducing all
those industrial processes necessary to meet the immediate
and current wants of railway locomotion, and out of which
there must grow the application of machinery to those
branches of industry not immediately connected with the
railways. The railway system will therefore become in
India truly the forerunner of modern industry. . . . Modern

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

IO4

industry, resulting from the railway system, will dissolve
the hereditary divisions of labour, upon which rest the
Indian castes, those decisive impediments to Indian pro¬
gress and Indian power.”

(Marx, “ The Future Results of British Rule in India ”.)

Does this mean that Marx saw imperialism in India as a
progressive force capable of emancipating the Indian people
and carrying them forward along the path of social progress ?
On the contrary. When Marx spoke of the “ regenerating ”
role of British capitalist rule in India, he made clear that he
was referring only to its role in laying down the material
conditions for new advance. But that new advance could
only be realised by the Indian people themselves on condition
that they won liberation from imperialist rule, either by their
own successful revolt, or by the victory of the industrial
working class in Britain, carrying with it the liberation of
the Indian people. Until then, all the material achieve¬
ments of imperialism in India could bring no benefit or
improvement of conditions to the Indian people.

“ All the English bourgeoisie may be forced to do will
neither emancipate nor materially mend the social con¬
dition of the mass of the people, depending not only on
the development of the productive power, but on their
appropriation by the people. But what they will not fail
to do is to lay down the material premises for both. Has
the bourgeoisie ever done more? Has it ever effected a
progress without dragging individuals and people through
blood and dirt, through misery and degradation?

“ The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new elements
of society scattered among them by the British bourgeoisie
till in Great Britain itself the now ruling classes shall have
been supplanted by the industrial proletariat, or till the
Hindoos themselves shall have grown strong enough to
throw off the English yoke altogether.” (ibid.)

With this may be compared Engels’ statement on the
prospect of the Indian Revolution and the necessity of the
liberation of the subject colonial peoples in 1882 :

“ In my opinion the colonies proper, i.e., the countries
occupied by a European population, Canada, the Cape,
Australia, will all become independent; on the other

THE OLD BASIS

105

hand, the countries inhabited by a native population,
which are simply subjugated, India, Algiers, the Dutch,
Portuguese and Spanish possessions, must be taken over
for the time being by the proletariat and led as rapidly as
possible towards independence.

“ India will perhaps, indeed very probably, produce
a revolution, and as the proletariat emancipating itself
cannot conduct any colonial wars, this would have to
be given full scope ; it would not pass off without all sorts
of destruction, of course, but that sort of thing is inseparable
from all revolutions. The same thing might also take
place elsewhere, e.g., in Algiers and Egypt, and would
certainly be the best thing for us."

(Engels, letter to Kautsky, September 12, 1882.)

It will be seen that Marx’s analysis of the Indian situation
up to the middle of the nineteenth century turns on three
main factors : first, the destructive role of British rule in India,
uprooting the old society; second, the regenerative role of
British rule in India in the period of free-trade capitalism, laying
down the material premises for the future new society ; third,
the consequent practical conclusion of the necessity of a political
transformation whereby the Indian people should free them¬
selves from imperialist rule in order to build the new society.

To-day imperialist rule in India, like capitalism all over
the world, has long outlived its objectively progressive or
regenerating role, corresponding to the period of free trade
capitalism, and has become the most powerful reactionary
force in India, buttressing all the other forms of Indian
reaction. The stage has thus been reached when the task
of the political transformation indicated by Marx is directly
the order of the day.

Chapter VI : BRITISH RULE IN
INDIA— THE OLD BASIS

“ There is no end to the violence and plunder which is called British rule
in India.” — Lenin : “ Inflammable Material in World Politics ”, 1908.

M ore than eighty years have passed since Marx wrote on
India. Far-reaching changes have taken place. The main
d 2

106 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

outlines of Marx’s historical analysis still stand, and his vision
into the future of India (to which no parallel can be found in
any nineteenth-century writer on India) has not only "been
confirmed by experience in all the development that has taken
place since then, but is at the present day visibly in process of
being confirmed also in the political conclusion which he drew.

But to-day we can carry forward this analysis for a whole
further epoch of development, both of British imperialism in
India and of the forces of the Indian people.

Three main periods stand out in this history of imperialist
rule in India. The first is the period of Merchant Capital,
represented by the East India Company, and extending in the
general character of its system to the end of the eighteenth
century. The second is the period of Industrial Capital,
which established a new basis of exploitation of India in the
nineteenth century. The third is the modern period of
Finance-Capital, developing its distinctive system of the ex¬
ploitation of India on the remains of tl^p old, and growing up
from its first beginnings in the closing years of the nineteenth
century to its fuller development in the most recent phase.

Marx dealt with the two first periods, of Merchant Capital
and of Industrial Capital, in relation to India. We have now
to carry forward this analysis to the modern period of Finance-
Capital and its policy in India.

We may therefore cover in summary fashion the two first
stages, which are of primary importance as laying the basis for
the present system, and for understanding the line of develop¬
ment to the present situation, in order then to concentrate
mainly on the modern development.1

i. The Plunder of India

The era of the East India Company is conventionally
measured from its first Charter in 1600 to its final merging
in the Crown in 1858. In fact its main period of domination
of India was the second half of the eighteenth century.

Although the early trading depots were established in the
seventeenth century (Surat in 1612 ; Fort St. George, Madras,

1 For much of the material in this chapter special indebtedness should be
expressed to R. C. Dutt’s “ Economic History of India under Early British
Rule” (1901) and “ Economic History of India in the Victorian Age”
(1903), which remain the most authoritative studies on the development up
to the end of the nineteenth century.

THE OLD BASIS

107

in 1639; Bombay leased to the Company from 1669; and
Fort William, Calcutta, in 1696), the new East India Company
which subsequently conquered India only received its first
Charter in 1698, and did not reach its final consolidated
form till 1708. The East India Company which conquered
India was thus a typical monopolist creation of the oligarchy
which fixed its grip on England with the Whig Revolution.

By the middle of the eighteenth century the Company began
to build up its territorial power in India. The internal wars
which racked India in the eighteenth century after the
decline of the Mogul Empire represented a period of inner
confusion (comparable in some respects to the Wars of the
Roses in England or the Thirty Years War in Germany)
necessary for the break-up of the old order and preparing
the way, in the normal course of evolution, for the rise of
bourgeois power on the basis of the advancing merchant,
shipping and manufacturing interests in Indian society. The
invasion, however, during this critical period, of the repre¬
sen tadves of the more highly developed European bourgeoisie,
with their superior technical and military equipment and
social-political cohesion, thwarted this normal course of
evolution, and led to the outcome that the bourgeois rule
which supervened in India on the break-up of the old order
was not Indian bourgeois rule, growing up within the shell
of the old order, but foreign bourgeois rule, forcibly super¬
imposing itself on the old society and smashing the germs of the
rising Indian bourgeois class. Herein lay the tragedy of Indian
development, which thereafter became a thwarted or distorted
social development for the benefit of a foreign bourgeoisie.

It was this critical period of confusion and transition
characterising eighteenth-century India which gave the
foreign invaders the opportunity to fight and intrigue for areas
of domination. In this war of all against all, the British
bourgeoisie, representing the most advanced bourgeois Power,
was successful. Territorial power in India, at first nominally
within the old forms, was established with the conquest of
Bengal in the beginning of the second half of the eighteenth
century, and was steadily extended to supreme power in
India by the opening of the nineteenth century.

The company continued formally in charge till 1858. In
reality, however, the sovereignty of the British State as the

io8

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

ruler of the new conquered territories had already been
established since Lord North’s Regulating Act of 1 773, which
set up the Governor-General, his Council and a Supreme
Court, and with Pitt’s Act of 1784, which set up the Indian
Secretary of State and Board of Control in London. The
distinctive economic role of the Company was brought to an
end with the ending of its monopoly in 1813 (except for its
monopoly of the China trade, which was ended in 1833). The
shell of the dual system continued during the first half of the
nineteenth century, until the Revolt of 1857 exposed its
bankrupt and obsolete character, and led to the final liquida¬
tion of the Company in the following year.

It will thus be seen that the decisive period of the East India
Company’s domination and special exploitation of India was
the second half of the eighteenth century, the great germinal
period of modern capitalism. The character of that exploitation
differs from the subsequent nineteenth-century exploitation by
industrial capital, and requires its separate analysis.

The original aim of the East India Company in its trade with
India was the typical aim of the monopolist companies of 4
Merchant Capital, to make a profit by securing a monopoly
trade in the goods and products of an overseas country. The
governing objective was, not the hunt for a market, for British
manufactures, but the endeavour to secure a supply of the
products of India and the East Indies (especially spices,
cotton goods and silk goods), which found a ready market in
England and Europe, and could thus yield a rich profit on
every successful expedition that could return with a supply.

The problem, however, which faced the Company from the
outset was that, in order to secure these goods from India by
way of trade, it was necessary to offer India something in ex¬
change. England, at the stage of development reached in the
early seventeenth century, had nothing of value to offer India
in the way of products comparable in quality or technical
standard with Indian products, the only important industry
then developed being the manufacture of woollen goods,
which were no use for India. Therefore precious metals had
to be taken out to buy the goods in India.

“ The whole difficulty of trading with the East lay in

the fact that Europe had so little to send out that the

East wanted — a few luxury articles for the Courts, lead,

THE OLD BASIS

109

copper, quicksilver and tin, coral, gold and ivory, were
the only commodities except silver that India would
absorb. Therefore it was mainly silver that was taken out.”

(L. C. A. Knowles, “ Economic Development of the
Overseas Empire ”, p. 73.)

Accordingly, at its commencement the East India Company
was given a special authorisation to export an annual value of
£30,000 in silver, gold and foreign coin. But this was most
painful and repugnant to the whole system of Mercantile
Capitalism, which regarded the precious metals as the only
real wealth a country could possess, and the essential object of
trade as to secure a net favourable balance expressed in an
influx of precious metals or increase of real wealth.

From the outset the merchant “ adventurers ” of the East
India Company were much concerned to devise a means to
solve this problem and secure the goods of India for little or
no payment. One of their first devices was to develop a
system of roundabout trade, and, in particular, to utilise the
plunder from the rest of the colonial system, in Africa and
America, to meet the costs in India, where they had not yet
the power to plunder directly :

“ The English trade with India was really a chase to find
something that India would be willing to take, and the
silver obtained by the sale of the slaves in the West Indies
and Spanish America was all-important in this connection.”

(Knowles, op. cit., p. 74.)

So soon, however, as domination began to be established
in India, by the middle of the eighteenth century, methods of
power could be increasingly used to weight the balance of
exchange and secure the maximum goods for the minimum
payment. The margin between trade and plunder, from the
outset never very sharply drawn (the original “ adventurers ”
often combined trade with piracy), began to grow con¬
spicuously thin. The merchant, in any case always favourably
placed in relation to the individual producer, whether
weaver or peasant, to dictate terms favourable to himself,
was now able to throw the sword into the scales to secure a
bargain which abandoned all pretence of equality of exchange.
By 1762 the Nawab of Bengal was complaining impotently
to the Company about the Company’s agents :

1 10

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

“ They forcibly take away the goods and commodities
of the Ryots (peasants), merchants, etc., fona fourth part of
their value; and by ways of violence and oppression they
oblige the Ryots, etc., to give five rupees for goods which
are worth but one rupee.”

(Memorandum of the Nawab of Bengal to the English
Governor, May, 1762.)

Similarly an English merchant, William Bolts, in his “ Con¬
siderations on India Affairs”, published in 1772, described
the process :

“ The English, with their Banyans and black Gomastahs,
arbitrarily decide what quantities of goods each manu¬
facturer shall deliver, and the prices he shall receive for
them. . . . The assent of the poor weaver is in general not
deemed necessary ; for the Gomastahs, when employed
on the Company’s investment, frequently make them sign
what they please; and upon the weavers refusing to take
the money offered, it has been known that they have been
tied in their girdles, and they have been sent away with a
flogging. ... A number of these weavers are generally
also registered in the books of the Company’s Gomastahs,
and not permitted to work for any others, being trans¬
ferred from one to another as so many slaves. . . . The
roguery practised in this department is beyond imagination ;
but all terminates in the defrauding of the poor weaver;
for the prices which the Company’s Gomastahs, and in
confederacy with them the Jachendars (examiners of
fabrics) fix upon the goods, are in all places at least 15 per
cent., and some even 40 per cent, less than the goods so
manufactured would sell in the public bazaar or market
upon free sale.”

(William Bolts, “ Considerations on India Affairs ”,
1772, pp- I9I-4)-

Nominal “ trade ” was thus already more plunder than trade.
But when the administration of the revenues passed into the
hands of the Company, with the granting of the Dewani or
civil administration of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1 765, a
new field of limitless direct plunder was opened up in addition
to the profits of “ trade ”. Then began a process of wholesale
unashamed spoliation which has made the Company’s

THE OLD BASIS

1 1 1

administration during the last third of the eighteenth century
a by-word in history. In the words of the House of Commons
resolution in 1 784 :

“ The result of the Parliamentary enquiries has been that
the East India Company was found totally corrupted and
totally perverted from the purposes of its institution, whether
political or commercial ; that the powers of war and peace
given by the Charter had been abused by kindling hostilities
in every quarter for the purposes of rapine ; that almost
all the treaties of peace they have made have only given
cause to so many breaches of public faith ; that countries
once the most flourishing are reduced to a state of impotence,
decay and depopulation.”

With this may be compared the Company’s own opinion on its
role, as set out in its Petition to Parliament in 1858 (written
by the sanctimonious prig, John Stuart Mill) :

“ The Government in which they have borne a part has
been not only one of the purest in intention, but one of the
most beneficent in act ever known among mankind.”

On this claim Sir George Cornewall Lewis declared in Parlia¬
ment in 1858:

‘‘I do most confidently maintain that no civilised
Government ever existed on the face of this earth which
was more corrupt, more perfidious and more rapacious
than the Government of the East India Company from
1765 to 1784.”

(Sir George Cornewall Lewis in the House of Commons,
February 12, 1858.)

Clive’s own view of the considerations governing the East
India Company (and not merely its individual servants,
whose private plunder was additional to that of the Company)
was given in his speech to Parliament in 1772 :

“ The Company had acquired an Empire more extensive
than any kingdom in Europe, France and Russia excepted.
They had acquired a Revenue of four million sterling, and
a Trade in Proportion. It was natural to suppose that such
an object would merit the most serious attention of the
Administration. . . . Did they take it into consideration?
No, they did not. They treated it rather as a South Sea

1 12

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

Bubble than as anything solid and substantial. They
thought of nothing but the present time, regardless of the
future : they said, let us get what we can to-day, let to¬
morrow take care for itself ; they thought of nothing but the
immediate division of the loaves and fishes.”

(Clive, in the House of Commons, March 30, 1772.)

What was the character of the system established by the
East India Company when it had won the civil power in
Bengal and in the other territories it conquered ? The direct
calculation of the profit to be made and remitted to England
as the sole consideration in taking over the administration was
set out by Clive in his letter to the Directors in 1765 with a
clearness and simplicity which are in refreshing contrast to
subsequent philanthropic humbug :

“ Your revenues, by means of this acquisition, will, as
near as I can judge, not fall far short for the ensuing year of
250 lakhs of Sicca Rupees, including your former possessions
of Burdwam, etc. Hereafter they will at least amount to
20 or 30 lakhs more. Your civil and military expenses in
time of peace can never exceed 60 lakhs of Rupees ; the
Nabob’s allowances are already reduced to 42 lakhs, and
the tribute to the King (the Great Mogul) at 26 ; so that
there will be remaining a clear gain to the Company of
122 lakhs of Sicca Rupees or £1,650,900 sterling.”

(Clive, letter to the Directors of the East India Com¬
pany, September 30, 1765.)

Here all is as straightforward and business-like as a merchant’s
ledger. Of the total revenue extracted from the population
one quarter is considered sufficient for the purposes of govern¬
ment ; one quarter is still needed to square the claims of the
local potentates (Nabob and Mogul) ; the remainder, or half
the revenue, estimated at £i| million, is “clear gain”.
Bottomley’s old dream of the “ Business Man’s Government ” is
here realised with a completeness never equalled before or since.

How far the results achieved corresponded to the aims is
shown by the statement of the revenues and expenses of
Bengal during the first six years of the Company’s administra¬
tion, as reported to Parliament in 1773. The total net
revenue was given as £13,066,761 ; the total expenditure as
£9,027,609; the balance of £4,037,152 was remitted. Thus

THE OLD BASIS I 1 3

nearly one-third of the revenues of Bengal was sent out
of the country as “ clear gain

But this was by no means the total of the tribute. Enormous
fortunes were made by individual officers of the Company.
Clive himself, who started from nothing, returned home with
a fortune estimated at a quarter of a million pounds, in
addition to an Indian estate bringing in £27,000 a year ; he
reported that “fortunes of £100,000 have been obtained in
two years ”. A measure closer to the full tribute is revealed
by the figures of exports and imports ; during the three years
1766-68, according to the report of the Governor, Verelst,
exports amounted to £6,311,250, while imports amounted to
only £624,375. Thus ten times as much was taken out of the
country as was sent into it under the ruling care of this new
type of merchant company governing a country.

The dearest dream of the merchants of the East India
Company was thus realised : to draw the wealth out of India
without having to send wealth in return. As a member of
Clive’s Council, L. Scrafton, exulted already in 1763, on the
basis of the initial stages of spoliation achieved after Plassey,
it had been possible for three years to carry on the whole
India trade “ without sending out one ounce of bullion ” :

“ These glorious successes have brought near three
millions of money to the nation ; for, properly speaking,
almost the whole of the immense sums received from the
Soubah finally centres in England. So great a proportion
of it fell into the Company’s hands, either from their own
share, or by sums paid into the treasury at Calcutta for bills
and receipts, that they have been enabled to carry on the
whole trade of India (China excepted) for three years
together, without sending out one ounce of bullion. Vast
sums have been also remitted through the hands of foreign
companies, which weigh in the balance of trade to their
amount in our favour with such foreign nations.”

(L. i Scrafton, “ Reflections on the Government of
Indostan ”, 1763.)

The portion of the revenues of Bengal which was remitted to
England was termed, by a judiciously inverted terminology,
the Company’s “ investment On this system the Select
Committee of the House of Commons reported in 1 783 :

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

I 14

“ A certain portion of the revenues of Bengal has been .
for many years set apart in the purchase of goods for
exportation to England, and this is called the Investment.
The greatness of this Investment has been the standard
by which the merit of the Company’s principal servants
has been too generally estimated ; and this main cause of
the impoverishment of India has been generally taken
as a measure of its wealth and prosperity. . . . But the
payment of a tribute, and not a beneficial commerce to
that country, wore this specious and delusive appearance. . . .

“ When an account is taken of the intercourse, for it
is not commerce, which is carried on between Bengal and
England, the pernicious effects of the system of Investment
from revenue will appear in the strongest point of view.
In that view, the whole exported produce of the country,
so far as the Company is concerned, is not exchanged in
the course of barter, but it is taken away without any return
or payment whatever.”

(“ House of Commons Select Committee’s Ninth
Report ”, 1783, pp. 54-5.)

The effects of this system on the population of Bengal can be
imagined. The ceaselessly renewed demand for more and
yet more spoils led to the most reckless raising of the land
revenue demands to heights which in many cases even meant
taking the seed com and the bullocks from the peasants. In
the last year of administration of the last Indian ruler of
Bengal, in 1764-5, the land revenue realised was £817,000.
In the first year of the Company’s administration, in 1765-6,
the land revenue realised in Bengal was £1,470,000. By
1771-2, it was £2,341,000, and by 1775-6 it was £2,818,000.
When Lord Cornwallis fixed the Permanent Settlement in
1793, he fixed it at £3,400,000.

All contemporary witnesses have given evidence of the rapid
devastation of the country within a few years by this process,
the cutting down of the population by one-third through the
consequent famine, and the transformation of one-third of
the country into “ a jungle inhabited only by wild beasts
In 1769 the Company’s Resident at Murshidabad, Becher,
reported to the Company:

“ It must give pain to an Englishman to have reason to

THE OLD BASIS

think that since the accession of the Company to the Dewani
the condition of the people of this country has been worse
than it was before, and yet I am afraid the fact is undoubted.
. . . This fine country, which flourished under the most
despotic and arbitrary Government, is verging towards its
ruin while the English have really so great a share in the
Administration. . . .

“ I well remember this country when trade was free and
the flourishing state it was then in ; with concern I now see
its present ruinous condition, which I am convinced is
greatly owing to the monopoly that has been made of late
years in the Company’s name of almost all the manufactures
in the country.”

By 1770 this “ruinous condition” was succeeded by a
famine in Bengal which, in the Company’s official report,

1“ exceeds all description. Above one-third of the inhabitants
have perished in the once-plentiful province of Purneah, and
in other parts the misery is equal.” Ten million people were
estimated to have perished in this famine. Yet the land
revenue was not only rigorously collected without mercy
through this famine, but was actually increased. The
Calcutta Council of the Company reported on February 12,
1771 : “ Notwithstanding the great severity of the late famine
and the great reduction of people thereby, some increase has
been made in the settlements both of the Bengal and the Bihar
provinces for the present year.” How this was achieved the
grim note of Warren Hastings in 1772 records:

“ Notwithstanding the loss of at least one-third of the
inhabitants of the province, and the consequent decrease of
the cultivation, the net collections of the year 1771 exceeded
even those of 1768. ... It was naturally to be expected
that the diminution of the revenue should have kept an
equal pace with the other consequences of so great a calamity.
That it did not was owing to its being violently kept up to
its former standard.”

(Warren Hastings, “ Report to the Court of Directors ”,
November 3, 1772.)

A decade and a half later William Fullarton, M.P., described
the transformation of Bengal after twenty years of the Com¬
pany’s rule :

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

1 1 6

“In former times the Bengal countries were the granary
of nations, and the repository of commerce, wealth and
manufacture in the East. ... •

“ But such has been the restless energy of our misgovern-
ment that within the short space of twenty years many parts
of these countries have been reduced to the appearance of
a desert. The fields are no longer cultivated ; extensive
tracts are already overgrown with thickets ; the husbandman
is plundered ; the manufacturer oppressed ; famine has been
repeatedly endured ; and depopulation has ensued.”

(William Fullarton, M.P., “ A View of the English
Interests in India ”, 1787.)

“ Were we to be driven out of India this day ”, Burke
declared in his rhetorical denunciation, “ nothing would
remain to tell that it had been possessed, during this inglorious
period of our dominion, by anything better than the
ourangotang or the tiger.”

By 1789 rhetoric was echoed by fact when the Governor-
General, Lord Cornwallis, reported :

“ I may safely assert that one third of the Company’s
territory in Hindustan is now a jungle inhabited only by
wild beasts.”

(Lord Cornwallis, minute of September 18, 1789.)

2. India and the Industrial Revolution

On the basis of the plunder of India in the second half of
the eighteenth century modern England was built up.

In the middle of the eighteenth century England was still
mainly agricultural. In 1750 the Northern Counties still
contained less than one-third of the population ; Gloucester¬
shire was more thickly populated than Lancashire (A.
Toynbee, “ The Industrial Revolution ”, pp. 9-10). The
woollen industry was still the main industry; in 1770 woollen
exports, according to Baine’s “ History of the Cotton Manu¬
facture ” (p. 1 12), comprised between one-third and one-
fourth of all exports. “ The machines used in the cotton
manufacture”, writes Baines, “were, up to the year 1760,
nearly as simple as those of India ” (p. 1 15).

Socially, in respect of the division of classes, the creation
of a proletariat and the establishment of secure bourgeois rule,

THE OLD BASIS I17

the conditions were ripe for the advance to industrial
capitalism. The commercial basis had been laid. But the
advance to the industrial capitalist stage required also an
initial accumulation of capital on a much larger scale than
was yet present in England of the middle eighteenth century.

Then in 1 757 came the battle of Plassey, and the wealth of
India began to flood the country in an ever-growing stream.

Immediately after, the great series of inventions began
which initiated the Industrial Revolution. In 1764 came the
spinning-jenny of Hargreaves ; in 1 765 came Watt’s steam
engine, patented in 1 769 ; in 1 769 came the water-frame of
Arkwright, followed by his patents in 1775 for carding-,
drawing- and spinning-machines; in 1779 the mule of
Crompton, and in 1 785 the power-loom of Cartwright ; and in
1 788 the steam engine was applied to blast furnaces.

That this series of inventions should come in a throng in
this period indicates that the social conditions were ripe for
their exploitation. Previous inventions had not been taken
, up for profitable use : “ini 733 Kay patented his fly-shuttle,
and in 1738 Wyatt patented his roller-spinning machine
worked by water-power; but neither of these inventions
seems to have come into use ” (G. H. Perris, “ The Industrial
History of Modern England ”, p. 16.)

The leading authority on English industrial history. Dr.
Cunningham, pointed out in his “ Growth of English Industry
and Commerce in Modern Times ” that the development of
the age of inventions depended, not simply on “ some special
and unaccountable burst of inventive genius ”, but on the
accumulation of a sufficient body of capital as the indispens¬
able condition to make possible the large-scale outlay for their
utilisation :

“ Inventions and discoveries often seem to be merely
fortuitous ; men are apt to regard the new machinery as the
outcome of a special and unaccountable burst of inventive
genius in the eighteenth century. But to point out that Ark¬
wright and Watt were fortunate in the fact that the times
were ripe for them, is not to detract from their merits. There
had been many ingenious men from the time of William
Lee and Dodo Dudley; but the conditions of their day
were unfavourable to their success.

“ The introduction of expensive implements or processes

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

1 18

involves a large outlay; it is not worth while for any
man, however energetic, to make the attempt, unless he
has a considerable command of capital, and has access to
large markets. In the eighteenth century these conditions
were being more and more realised. The institution of the
Bank of England, and of other banks, had given a great
impulse to the formation of capital ; and it was much more
possible than it had ever been before for a capable man to
obtain the means of introducing costly improvements in
the management of his business.”

(W. Cunningham, “ Growth of English Industry and
Commerce in Modern Times ”, p. 610.)

The institution of the Bank of England in 1694, however,
could not itself provide the primary accumulation of capital.
Until the middle eighteenth century banking capital and
mobile capital were still scarce. Whence came the sudden
access to the accumulation of capital in the second half of the
eighteenth century? Marx has shown how the primary
accumulation of capital of the modern world, alike in the earlier
stages of bourgeois growth and in its further development,
derives above all from the spoils of the colonial system, from the
silver of Mexico and South America, from the slave trade and
from the plunder of India (“ if money, according to Augier,
‘ comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one
cheek ’, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every
pore, with blood and dirt ” : “ Capital”, Vol. I, ch. xxxi). And
the sudden access of capital in England in the second half of the
eighteenth century came above all from the plunder of India.

“ For more than sixty years after the foundation of the
Bank of England, its smallest note had been for £20, a
note too large to circulate freely, and which rarely travelled
far from Lombard Street. Writing in 1 790, Burke said that
when he came to England in 1750, there were not ‘ twelve
bankers’ shops ’ in the provinces, though then (in 1 790)
he said, they were in every market town. Thus the arrival
of the Bengal silver not only increased the mass of money,
but stimulated its movement ; for at once, in 1 759, the Bank
issued £\o and £15 notes, and in the country private firms
poured forth a flood of paper.”

(Brooks Adams, “ The Law of Civilisation and Decay ”,
pp. 263-4.)

THE OLD BASIS

1*9

“ The influx of the Indian treasure, by adding consider¬
ably to the nation’s cash capital, not only increased its
stock of energy, but added much to its flexibility and the
rapidity of its movement. Very soon after Plassey, the
Bengal plunder began to arrive in London, and the effect
appears to have been instantaneous ; for all the authorities
agree that the ‘ industrial revolution the event which has
divided the nineteenth century from all antecedent time,
began with the year 1760. Prior to 1760, according to
Baines, the machinery used for spinning cotton in Lancashire
was almost as simple as in India; while about 1750 the
English iron industry was in full decline because of the de¬
struction of the forests for fuel. At that time four-fifths
of the iron used in the kingdom came from Sweden.

“ Plassey was fought in 1757, and probably nothing has
ever equalled the rapidity of the change which followed.
In 1760 the flying shuttle appeared, and coal began to
replace wood in smelting. In 1 764 Hargreaves invented the
spinning jenny, in 1776 Crompton contrived the mule, in
1785 Cartwright patented the power loom, and, chief of
all, in 1768 Watt matured the steam engine, the most per¬
fect of all vents of centralising energy. But, though these
, machines served as outlets for the accelerating movement of
the time, they did not cause that acceleration. In them¬
selves inventions are passive, many of the most important
having lain dormant for centuries, waiting for a sufficient
store of force to have accumulated to set them working.
That store must always take the shape of money, and money
not hoarded, but in motion. Before the influx of the Indian
treasure, and the expansion of credit which followed, no
force sufficient for this purpose existed ; and had Watt lived
fifty years earlier, he and his invention must have perished
together. Possibly since the world began, no investment
has ever yielded the profit reaped from the Indian plunder,
because for nearly fifty years Great Britain stood without a
competitor. From 1694 to Plassey (1757) the growth had
been relatively slow. Betweem 1760 and 1815 the growth
was very rapid and prodigious.” {Ibid., pp. 259-60.)

In this way the spoliation of India was the hidden source
of accumulation which played an all-important role in help¬
ing to make possible the Industrial Revolution in England.

120

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

But once the Industrial Revolution had been achieved in
England with the aid of the plunder of India, the new task
became to find adequate outlets for the flood of manufactured
goods. This necessitated a revolution in the economic system,
from the principles of mercantile capitalism to the principles
of free-trade capitalism. And this in turn involved a corre¬
sponding complete change in the methods of the colonial
system.

The new needs required the creation of a free market in
India in place of the previous monopoly. It became necessary
to transform India from an exporter of cotton goods to the
whole world into an importer of cotton goods. This meant
a revolution in the economy of India. It meant at the same
time a complete change-over from the whole previous system
of the East India Company. A transformation had to be
carried through in the methods of exploitation of India, and
a transformation that would have to be fought through against
the strenous opposition of the vested interests of the Company’s
monopoly.

The first steps preparing the way for this change had already
been undertaken in the last decade and a half of the eighteenth
century.

It was obvious that, in the interests of effective exploitation,
the wholesale anarchic and destructive methods of spoliation
pursued by the East India Company and its servants could not
continue without some change. The stupid and reckless
rapacity of the Company and its servants was destroying the
basis of exploitation, just as in England a few years later the
unbounded greed of the Lancashire manufacturers was to
devour nine generations of the people in one. And just as the
greed of the manufacturers had to be curbed by the action of
the State on behalf of the capitalist class as a whole, in the
interests of future exploitation (the attack being led by their
economic rivals, the landed interests), so in the last quarter
of the eighteenth century the central organs of the State
had to be invoked to regulate the operations of the Company
in India. Here also the attack was led by the rival interests.
All the numerous interests opposed to the exclusive monopoly
of the East India Company combined to organise a powerful
offensive against it. From this offensive arose a vast literature
of opposition during this period against the misgovernment of

THE OLD BASIS

1 2 1

the East India Company, a literature of opposition which,
for completeness, detail and authority, is without equal in the
exposure of imperialism at any time.

Already the English manufacturers in the earlier eighteenth
century had led an attack against the East India Company
because the imports of the superior Indian fabrics were creat¬
ing a dangerous competition. By 1720 they had succeeded in
securing the complete prohibition of the import of Indian
silks and printed calicoes into England, and increasingly
heavy duties were imposed on all Indian manufactured cotton
goods. The Company’s trade in Indian manufactures was
conducted as an entrepot trade by way of English ports for
export to Europe. •

But the new offensive which developed in the last quarter
of the eighteenth century was directed against the entire
corrupt monopolist administration of the East India Company
in India, This offensive, which had the support, not only of
the rising English manufacturing interests, but of the powerful
trading interests excluded from the monopoly of the East
India Company, was the precursor of the new developing
industrial capitalism, with its demand for free entry into India
as a market, and for the removal of all obstacles, through
individual corruption and spoliation, to the effective exploita¬
tion of that market.

Significantly enough, the offensive was launched in 1776
by the father of the classical economy of free-trade manufac¬
turing capitalism, and precursor of the new era, Adam Smith.
In his “ Wealth of Nations ”, published in 1776, which became
the bible of the new school of statesmen represented by the
younger Pitt, Adam Smith devoted a section to a merciless
onslaught on the entire basis of the East India Company.
In his classic downright style he wrote: .

“ Such exclusive companies are nuisances in every
respect ; always more or less inconvenient to the countries
in which they are established, and destructive to those
which have the misfortune to fall under their government.

“ It is the interest of the East India Company, considered
as sovereigns, that the European goods which are carried
to their Indian dominions should be sold there as cheap as
possible; and that the Indian goods which are brought
from thence should bring there as good a price, or should

122

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

be sold there as dear as possible. But the reverse of this
is their interest as merchants. As sovereigns, their interest
is exactly the same with that of the country which they
govern. As merchants their interest is directly opposite
to that interest. . . .

“ It is a very singular government in which every member
of the administration wishes to get out of the country,
and consequently to have done with the government as
soon as he can, and to whose interest, the day after he has
left it and carried his whole fortune with him, it is perfectly
indifferent though the whole country was swallowed up
by an earthquake.”

(Adam Smith, “ Wealth of Nations ”, Book IV,
chapter vii.)

“Frequently a man of great, sometimes even a man of small
fortune, is willing to purchase a thousand pounds’ share of
India stock merely for the influence which he expects to
acquire by a vote in the Court of Proprietors. It gives him
a share, though not in the plunder, yet in the appointment
of the plunderers of India. . . . Provided he can enjoy
this influence for a few years, and thereby provide for a
certain number of his friends, he frequently cares little about
the dividend, or even about the value of the stock upon
which his vote is founded. About the prosperity of the great
empire, in the government of which that vote gives him a
share, he seldom cares at all. No other sovereigns ever
were, or, from the nature of things, ever could be, so
perfectly indifferent about the happiness or misery of their
subjects, the improvement or waste of their dominions,
the glory or disgrace of their administration, as, from irresist¬
ible moral causes, the greater part of the proprietors of such
a mercantile company are, and necessarily must be.”

[Ibid., Book V, chapter i.)

Here we have the voice of the rising manufacturers’ opposi¬
tion to the mercantile basis of the East India Company,
and the prelude to the victory of the industrial capitalists over
the old system.

The attack on the old basis of the East India Company and
demand for change were carried forward in the proceedings
of the House of Commons Select Committee in 1 782-83. In

THE OLD BASIS

123

1783 came Fox’s India Bill, which sought to abolish the Courts
of Directors and Proprietors and replace them by Com¬
missioners appointed by Parliament. This was defeated by
the opposition of the Company. Its defeat resulted in the fall
of Fox’s Government and the succession of Pitt, who held
power thereafter for the next two decades. At this critical
turning-point India was thus revealed as the pivotal issue of
English politics. In 1784 Pitt’s India Act, which, although
compromising on Fox’s proposals by the alternative of the
clumsy dual system, established the same essential principle
of direct control by the State, was carried against the opposi¬
tion of Hastings and the Company. In 1 786 Lord Cornwallis
was sent out as Governor-General to carry through drastic
changes in administration. In 1788 Warren Hastings,
who had been in charge as Governor and Governor-General
from 1772 to 1785, was impeached for corruption and mis-
government. This impeachment was in reality a Government
act, directly authorised by the decision of Pitt, with the support
of the leading Parliamentary forces, Fox, Burke and Sheridan,
and represented an offensive, not so much against an individual,
as against a system.

The further development of this offensive was interrupted
by the overshadowing world issues of the French Revolution,
which ended the reforming period of Pitt’s administration
and revealed the role of the English bourgeoisie as the leader of
world counter-revolution. Burke passed from his violent
denunciations of tyranny and misrule in India, which had
won the admiration of liberal elements, to his even more
violent denunciation of the fight for liberty in France, which
won him the admiration and acknowledgements of the mon-
archs of Europe. It is interesting to note that Philip Francis,
the member of the Governor’s Council in India who had
fought Hastings on the Council, and who had supplied the
main materials to Burke and the others for the impeachment,
wrote to Burke a letter of burning scorn for his reactionary
role in relation to the French Revolution. The impeach¬
ment of Hastings was allowed to drag into a dreary protraction
for seven years, and ended in a complete acquittal in 1795.
Pitt passed from his early moves towards free trade to the high
protectionist system of the French wars. It was not until
towards the close of the French wars, in 1813, with industrial

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

124

capital now strongly established, that the question of
India was taken up afresh, and the decisive step made towards
the new stage.

Lord Cornwallis as Governor-General had reorganised the
administration in order to replace the system of anarchic
individual corruption and spoliation by a well-paid civil
service. He sought to end the previous arbitrary continual
increases of land revenue, which were turning the country
into jungle and destroying the basis of exploitation, by the
experiment of the Permanent Land Settlement in Bengal,
which established a new landlord class as the social basis of
British rule, with a permanently fixed payment to the Govern¬
ment.

All these measures were intended as reforms. In reality,
they were the necessary measures to clear the ground for the
more scientific exploitation of India in the interests of the
capitalist class as a whole. They prepared the way for the
new stage of exploitation by industrial capital, which was to
work far deeper havoc on the whole economy of India than the
previous haphazard plunder.

3. Industrial Devastation

In 1813 the offensive of the industrialists and other trading
interests was at last successful, and the monopoly of the East
India Company in trade with India was ended. The new
stage of industrial capitalist exploitation of India may thus be
dated from 1813.

Prior to 1813 trade with India had been relatively small.
Seeley, in his “ Expansion of England ”, published in 1883,
noted the transformation that had taken place in the nine¬
teenth century :

“ Macculloch, in the Note on India in his edition of
Adam Smith, speaks of the trade between England and
India about 1811 — that is, in the days of the monopoly —
as being utterly insignificant, of little more importance than
that between England and Jersey or the Isle of Man. . . .

“ But now instead of Jersey or the Isle of Man we com¬
pare our trade with India to that with the United States
or France. . . . India heads France and all other nations
except the United States as an importer from England.”

(J. R. Seeley, “ Expansion of England ”, 1883, p. 299.)

THE OLD BASIS

!25

Similarly the official Report of the Company in 1 8 1 2 made clear
that the value of India at that time was as a source of direct
tribute or spoliation, not as a market for goods :

“ The importance of that immense Empire to this
country is rather to be estimated by the great annual
addition it makes to the wealth and capital of the Kingdom,
than by any eminent advantage which the manufacturers of
the country can derive from the consumption of the natives
of India.’1

(Report of the East India Company for 1812, quoted
in Parshad, “ Some Aspects of India’s Foreign
Trade ”, p. 49.)

The proceedings of the parliamentary enquiry of 1813,
preceding the renewal of the Charter and abolition of the
monopoly, showed how completely the current of thought was
now directed to the new aim of the development of India as a
market for the rising British machine industry. It was
further notable how the replies of the representatives of the
old school, like Warren Hastings, denied the possibility of the
development of India as a market.

At the time of this enquiry the duties on the import of
Indian calicoes into Britain were 78 per cent. Without
these prohibitive duties the British cotton industry could
not have developed in its early stages.

“ It was stated in evidence (in 1813) that the cotton
and silk goods of India up to the period could be sold for a
profit in the British market at a price from 50% to 60%
lower than those fabricated in England. It consequently
became necessary to protect the latter by duties of 70% and
80% on their value, or by positive prohibition. Had this
not been the case, had not such prohibitory duties and
decrees existed, the mills of Paisley and Manchester would
have been stopped in their outset, and could scarcely have
been again set in motion, even by the power of steam.
They were created by the sacrifice of the Indian manu¬
facture.”

(H. H. Wilson, “ History of British India ”, Vol. I,
P- 385-)

This tariff discrimination against Indian manufactures to
build up the British textile industry was carried on in the

126

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

first half of the nineteenth century. In the parliamentary
enquiry of 1840 it was reported that, while British cotton
and silk goods imported into India paid a duty of 3) per cent,
and woollen goods 2 per cent., Indian cotton goods imported
into Britain paid 10 per cent., silk goods 20 per cent, and
woollen goods 30 per cent.

Thus it was not only on the basis of the technical superiority
of machine industry, but also with the direct State assistance
of one-way free trade (free entry, or virtual free entry, for
British goods into India, but tariffs against the entry of Indian
manufactures into Britain, and prevention of direct trade
between India and European or other foreign countries by the
operation of the Navigation Acts) that the predominance of
British manufactures was built up in the Indian market and
the Indian manufacturing industries were destroyed.

This process was decisively carried through in the first
half of the nineteenth century, although its effects continued
to operate right through the nineteenth century and even into
the twentieth century. Alongside the headlong advance of
British manufactures went the decline of Indian manufactures.

Between 1814 and 1835 British cotton manufactures
exported to India rose from less than 1 million yards to over 51
million yards. In the same period Indian cotton piece-
goods imported into Britain fell from one and a quarter
million pieces to 306,000 pieces, and by 1844 to 63,000 pieces.

The contrast in values is no less striking. Between 1815 and
1832 the value of Indian cotton goods exported fell from
£1 -3 million to below £100,000, or a loss of twelve-thirteenths
of the trade in seventeen years. In the same period the value
of English cotton goods imported into India rose from
£26,000 to £400,000, or an increase of sixteen times. By
1850 India, which had for centuries exported cotton goods to
the whole world, was importing one-fourth of all British
cotton exports.

While machine-made cotton goods from England ruined the
weavers, machine-made twist ruined the spinners. Between
1818 and 1836 the export of cotton twist from England to
India rose 5,200 times.

The same process could be traced in respect of silk goods,
woollen goods, iron, pottery, glass and paper.

The effects of this wholesale destruction of the Indian

THE OLD BASIS

127

manufacturing industries on the economy of the country can
be imagined. In England the ruin of the old hand-loom
weavers was accompanied by the growth of the new machine
industry. But in India the ruin of the millions of artisans and
craftsmen was not accompanied by any alternative growth of
new forms of industry. The old populous manufacturing
towns, Dacca, Murshidabad (which Clive had described in
1757 to be “ as extensive, populous and rich as the city of
London ”), Surat and the like, were in a few years rendered
desolate under the “ pax britannica ” with a completeness
which no ravages of the most destructive war or foreign con¬
quest could have accomplished. “ The population of the
town of Dacca has fallen from 150,000 to 30,000 or 40,000,”
declared Sir Charles Trevelyan to the parliamentary enquiry
in 1840, “ and the jungle and malaria are fast encroaching
upon the town. . . . Dacca, which was the Manchester of
India, has fallen off from a very flourishing town to a very
poor and small one ; the distress there has been very great
indeed.” “ The decay and destruction ”, reported Mont¬
gomery Martin, the early historian of the British Empire, to
the same enquiry, “ of Surat, of Dacca, of Murshidabad and
other places where native manufactures have been carried on,
is too painful a fact to dwell upon. I do not consider that it
has been in the fair course of trade ; I think it has been the
power of the stronger exercised over the weaker.” “ Less than
a hundred years ago ”, wrote Sir Henry Cotton in 1890, “ the
whole commerce of Dacca was estimated at one crore (ten
millions) of rupees, and its population at 200,000 souls. In
1787 the exports of Dacca muslin to England amounted to
30 lakhs (three millions) of rupees; in 1817 they had ceased
altogether. The arts of spinning and weaving, which for ages
afforded employment to a numerous and industrial population,
have now become extinct. Families which were formerly
in a state of affluence have been driven to desert the towns
and betake themselves to the villages for a livelihood. . . .
This decadence has occurred not in Dacca only, but in all
districts. Not a year passes in which the Commissioners and
District Officers do not bring to the notice of Government
that the manufacturing classes in all parts of the country are
becoming impoverished.”

The 191 1 Census Report revealed the same process to be

128

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

still going on. In textiles, for example, the 1911 Report
recorded a decrease in the number of textile workers by 6 per
cent, in the preceding ten years, despite the gradual extension
by that time of textile manufacturing in India. This decrease
is attributed to “ the almost complete extinction of cotton
spinning by hand ”.

In the hide, skin and metal trades the 19 1 1 Census recorded
a decrease in the number of workers by 6 per cent, although at
the same time the number of metal dealers increased six
times. The reason is again clearly set out :

“ The decrease in the number of metal workers and the
concomitant increase in the number of rrtetal dealers is
due largely to the substitution for the indigenous brass and
copper utensils of enamelled ware and aluminium articles
imported from Europe.”

(“ Census of India Report ”, 1911.)

The iron and steel industry revealed the same picture :

“ The native iron-smelting industry has been practically
stamped out by cheap imported iron and steel within range
of the railways, but it still persists in the more remote parts
of the peninsula.”

(“ Imperial Gazetteer of India ”, 1907, Vol. Ill, p. 145.)

“ In India steel was used for weapons, for decorative
purposes and for tools, and remarkably high grade articles
were produced. The old weapons are second to none, and
it is said that the famous damascus blades were forged from
steel imported from Hyderabad in India. The famous iron
column, called the Kutab pillar at Delhi, weighs over six
tons and carried an epitaph composed about 415 a.d. No
one yet understands how so large a forging could have been
produced at that time. Remains of old smelting furnaces
found throughout India are essentially like those in Europe
prior to modern times. . . .

“ The Agarias, or iron smelting caste, were widely
dispersed, and the name lohara is applied to a great many
districts producing iron ore. But the introduction of cheaply
made European iron has taken away nearly all their trade,
and most Agarias have turned to unskilled labour. A

THE «OLD BASIS I2Q

century and a quarter ago Dr. Francis Buchanan found many
of these smelters.”

(D. H. Buchanan, “ Development of Capitalist Enter¬
prise in India ”, 1934, p. 274.)

It was not only the old manufacturing towns and centres
that were laid waste, and their population driven to crowd
and overcrowd the villages ; it was above all the basis of the
old village economy, the union of agriculture and domestic
industry, that received its mortal blow. The millions of
ruined artisans and craftsmen, spinners, weavers, potters,
tanners, smelters, smiths, alike from the towns and from the
villages, had no alternative save to crowd into agriculture. In
this way India was forcibly transformed, from being a country
of combined agriculture and manufactures, into an agricul¬
tural colony of British manufacturing capitalism. It is from
this period of British rule, and from the direct effects of British
rule, that originates the deadly over-pressure on agriculture in
India, which is still blandly described in official lite.rature as if
it were a natural phenomenon of the old Indian society, and
is diagnosed by the superficial and ignorant as a symptom of
“ over-population ”. In fact the increase in the proportion of
the population dependent on agriculture has developed under
British rule, continuously extending, not only throughout the
nineteenth century, but even in the twentieth century, as an
examination of the census figures will show (between 1891
and 1921 the proportion of the population dependent on
agriculture increased from 61 per cent, to 73 per cent. ; for a
fuller examination of these figures see Chapter VIII).

Already in 1840, at the parliamentary enquiry previously
quoted, Montgomery Martin gave warning of the dangerous
transformation that was taking place, to turn India into
“ the agricultural farm of England ” :

“ I do not agree that India is an agricultural country ;
India is as much a manufacturing country as an agricultural ;
and he who would seek to reduce her to the position of an
agricultural country seeks to lower her in the scale of
civilisation. I do not suppose that India is to become
the agricultural farm of England ; she is a manufacturing
country, her manufactures of various descriptions have
E

BRITISH RULE* IN INDIA

130

existed for ages, and have never been able to be competed
with by any nation wherever fair play has been given to
them. . . . To reduce her now to an agricultural country
would be an injustice to India.”

The East India Company in 1829, deprived of its trading
monopoly, and therefore now more interested in revenue than
in trade, painted a gloomy picture of the “ commercial revolu¬
tion ” being carried through in India, according to the minute
of the Governor-General, Lord William Cavendish-Bentinck,
on May 30, 1829, giving the views of the Court of Directors:

“ The sympathy of the Court is deeply excited by the
report of the Board of Trade, exhibiting the gloomy picture
of the effects of a commercial revolution productive of so
much present suffering to numerous classes in India, and
hardly to be parallelled in the history of commerce.”

But the manufacturing interests were determined to press
forward. “ I certainly pity the East Indian labourer,”
declared Mr. Cope, a Macclesfield manufacturer, to the 1840
parliamentary enquiry, “ but at the same time I have a
greater feeling for my own family than for the East Indian
labourer’s family ; I think it is wrong to sacrifice the comforts
of my family for the sake of the East Indian labourer because
his condition happens to be worse than mine.”

The industrial capitalists had their policy for India clearly
defined : to make India the agricultural colony of British
capitalism, supplying raw materials and buying manufac¬
tured goods. This policy was explicitly set out as the objec¬
tive by the President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce,
Thomas Bazley, in his evidence to the 1840 parliamentary
enquiry :

“ In India there is an immense extent of territory, and
the population of it would consume British manufactures
to a most enormous extent. The whole question with
respect to our Indian trade is whether they can pay us, by
the products of their soil, for what we are prepared to send
out as manufactures.”

The calculation here for the new stage of exploitation of
India is as sharp and precise as the previous calculation of
Clive three-quarters of a century earlier, already quoted, for
the preceding stage.

THE OLD BASIS

131

To develop the Indian market it was necessary to develop
the production and export of raw materials from India. It
was to this objective that British policy now turned.

“ The importance of India to England in the first half of
the century lay in the fact that India supplied some of the
essential raw materials — hides, oil, dyes, jute and cotton —
required for the industrial revolution in England, and at
the same time afforded a growing market for English
manufactures of iron and cotton.”

(L. C. A. Knowles, “ Economic Development of the
Overseas Empire ”, p. 305.)

The indication of the new stage of policy was the decision
in 1833 to permit Englishmen to acquire land and set up as
planters in India. In that same year slavery had been
abolished in the West Indies. The new plantation system,
which was nothing but thinly veiled slavery, was immediately
developed in India, and it is significant that many of the
original planters were slave drivers from the West Indies
(“ Experienced planters were brought from the West Indies.
. . . The area attracted a rather rough set of planters, some
of whom had been slave drivers in America and carried
unfortunate ideas and practices with them ” : Buchanan,
“ Development of Capitalist Enterprise in India ”, pp. 36-7).
The horrors that resulted were exposed in the Indigo Com¬
mission of i860. To-day there are more than a million
workers tied to the tea, rubber and coffee plantations, or
more than the total number of workers in the textile, coal¬
mining, engineering, iron and steel industries combined.

The export of raw materials leapt up, especially after 1833.
Raw cotton exports rose from 9 million pounds weight in
1813 to 32 million in 1833 and 88 million in 1844; sheeps’
wool from 3-7 thousand pounds weight in 1833 to 2-7 million
in 1844; linseed from 2,100 bushels in 1833 to 237,000 in
1844. (Porter, “ Progress of the Nation ”, 1847, p. 750.)

Between 1849 and 1914 exports of raw cotton rose from
£1-7 million in value to £22 million. In weight, raw cotton
exports rose from 32 million pounds in 1833 to 963 million in
1914, or thirty times over. Jute exports rose from £68,000
in 1849 to £8-6 million in 1914, or 126 times over.

Even more significant was the rising export of food grains

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

132

from starving India. The export of food grains, principally
rice and wheat, rose from £858,000 in 1849 to £3-8 million
by 1858, £7-9 million by 1877, £9-3 million by 1901, and
£19-3 million in 1914, or an increase twenty-two times over.

Alongside this process went a heavy increase in the number
and intensity of famines in the second half of the nineteenth
century. In the first half of the nineteenth century there
were seven famines, with an estimated total of i| million
deaths from famine. In the second half of the nineteenth
century there were twenty-four famines (six between 1851
and 1875, and twenty-four between 1876 and 1900), with
an estimated total, according to official records, of over 20
million deaths. “ Stated roughly, famines and scarcities
have been four times as numerous during the last thirty
years of the nineteenth century as they were one hundred
years earlier, and four times more widespread ” (W. Digby,
“ Prosperous British India ”, 1901). W. S. Lilley, in his
“ India and its Problems ”, gives the following approximate
figures on the basis of official estimates:

Years. Famine Deaths.

1800-25 . 1,000,000

1825-50 . 400,000

1850-75 . 5,000,000

1875-1900 ..... 15,000,000

In 1878 a Famine Commission was appointed to consider
the problem of the growing famines. Its Report, published
in 1880, found that “ a main cause of the disastrous con¬
sequences of Indian famines, and one of the greatest difficulties
in the way of providing relief in an effectual shape is to be
found in the fact that the great mass of the people directly
depend on agriculture, and that there is no other industry
from which any considerable part of the population derives
its support ”.

“ At the root of much of the poverty of the people of
India, and of the risks to which they are exposed in seasons
of scarcity, lies the unfortunate circumstance that agriculture
forms almost the sole occupation of the mass of the popula¬
tion, and that no remedy for present evils can be complete
which does not include the introduction of a diversity of
occupations, through which the surplus population may be

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA

133

drawn from agricultural pursuits and led to find the means
of subsistence in manufactures or some such employments.”

(Indian Famine Commission Report, 1880.)

With these words Industrial Capital passed judgement on
its own handiwork in India.

Chapter VII : MODERN
IMPERIALISM IN INDIA

“ Administration and exploitation go hand in hand.” — Lord Curzon in
1905.

Singe the war of 1914-18, imperialism in India has been
widely regarded as having entered on a new stage which has
little in common with the preceding period.

In the political field the old absolutism is judged to have
ended with the Declaration of 1917, which promised the new
goal of “ the progressive realisation of responsible government
in India as an integral part of the Empire ” ; and the succeed¬
ing history is seen as a history of gradual evolution (marred
by periods of mass hostility and non-co-operation) through
successive constitutional reforms, of which the recent 1935
Constitution is the latest example, towards the ultimate
realisation of this aim at some future date.

In the economic field the old laisser-faire hostility to Indian
industrial development is regarded as having given place to
a new angle of vision, which is transforming India into a
modern industrialised country under the fostering care of
British rule and with the aid of British capital.

A closer examination of the facts of the period since 1918
will show that they are far from bearing out this picture of
a progressive imperialism in its declining days.

Undoubtedly a transformation has taken place from the
old free-trade industrial capitalist exploitation of India. But
the decisive starting-point of change was not in reality con¬
stituted by the war of 1914, much as this may appear on a
first view to have made the gulf between the old and the new.
The first world war, with its far-reaching effects, supervened

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

134

on a process of change which was already developing in the
first decade and a half of the twentieth century. That change
is constituted by the transition from the free-trade industrial
capitalist stage to finance-capital and its rule in India. The
foundations of this transition had already been laid.

The war of 1914 accelerated and forced forward the whole
development, at the same time as, by unloosing the general
crisis of capitalism, it launched a series of political mass
struggles of a type previously unknown in India. From this
double process arises the distinctive character of the modern
period in India. This period has simultaneously seen the
unfolding of the full characteristics of finance-capitalist rule
in India, which were present only in a partial uncompleted
form in the earlier phase, and at the same time the breaking
of a series of waves of mass assault which have rocked the
foundations of imperialist supremacy. These two governing
forces have moulded the new India of to-day.

Constitutional reforms in India are no recent invention.
They have developed in a continuous line from the Councils
Act of 1861 (described in E. A. Horne’s standard “ Political
System of British India ” as having “ sown the first seeds of
representative institutions in British India ”), the develop¬
ment of the municipal and district boards in 1865 and 1882,
the Councils Act of 1892 and the Morley-Minto Reforms of
1909. The modern stage, generally dated from the 1917
Declaration, has its real opening in the years just before 1914
with the Morley-Minto Reforms, which inaugurated the
process of loudly trumpeted liberal reforms and concessions
(alongside coercion), while retaining the reality of power.
It is true that the Montagu-Chelmsford Report sought to
disparage and minimise the Morley-Minto Reforms in order
to signalise its own advance (“ excessive claims were made for
them in the enthusiasm of the moment ”) ; but its own
methods of dyarchy have been no less disparaged and con¬
temned by its successors. Admittedly, the earlier schemes did
not grant self-government ; this criticism, however, applies
also to the later schemes. The post- 1918 period may have
been presented to the British public as one of relaxing authority
and the handing over of power. But to the Indian people
the picture has been a different one ; alongside the concessions,
it has been characterised by waves of elaborate and extensive

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA I35

repression, imprisonment on a scale previously unknown,
widespread violence and shooting, and extreme restrictive
legislation.

Similarly in the economic field the first signs of the new
stage may be traced in the early years of the twentieth century.
It was in 1905 that Lord Gurzon established the new Depart¬
ment of Commerce and Industry, and in 1907 that the first
Industrial Conference was held. The growth of the Indian
cotton-mill industry was not only relatively, but also absolutely,
greater in the twenty years before 1914 than in the twenty
years after. The proclamations of the change of policy in
relation to the aim of industrialisation have been more marked
since then than before, and the new tariff policy dates from
the post- 1 91 8 period. But the results have been, by universal
admission, extremely meagre compared to the needs and possi¬
bilities; and the antagonisms thwarting productive develop¬
ment have continued and even been intensified in new forms.

The main transformation of the modern period has been
the political transformation through the advance of the
Indian people to a new stage in the struggle for their freedom.
This advance, however, has been achieved in opposition to
imperialism.

For the analysis of the driving forces of the modern
period of imperialist rule in India the key lies in the transition
from the era of industrial capital to the era of finance-capital.
The understanding of this process and its consequences is the
first necessity for the understanding of this period.

1. Transition to Finance-Capital

The distinctive forms of nineteenth-century exploitation of
India by industrial capital did not exclude the continuance of
the old forms of direct plunder, which were also carried
forward and at the same time transformed.

The “ tribute ”, as it was still openly called by official
spokesmen up to the middle of the nineteenth century, or
direct annual removal of millions of pounds of wealth to
England, both under the claim of official “ home charges ”
as well as by private remitting, without return of goods to
India (except for the proportionately small amount of govern¬
mental stores from England), continued and grew rapidly
throughout the nineteenth century alongside the growth of

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

I36

trade. In the twentieth century it grew even more rapidly,
alongside a relative decline in trade.

In 1848, before the House of Commons Select Committee on
Sugar and Coffee Planting in the West and East Indies, a
Director of the East India Company, Colonel Sykes, estimated
this “ tribute ”, as he termed it, at £3^ million a year: “ it
is only by the excess of exports over imports that India can
bear this tribute Similarly N. Alexander, an East India
merchant, reported to the same Committee: “Up to 1847
the imports of India were about £6,000,000, and the exports
about £9,000,000. The difference is the tribute which the
Company received from the country, which amounts to about
£4,000,000.”

Between 1851 and 1901 the total remitted to England as
“ home charges ” by the governing authority, excluding
private remitting, multiplied sevenfold, from £2^5 million
to £17-3 million, of which only £2 million represented
purchases of stores. By 1913-14 it had risen to £19-4 million,
of which only £1-5 million represented purchases of stores.
By 1933-34 the net total of expenditure in England returned
by the Government’s accounts amounted to £27-5 million,
of which only £1-5 million represented purchases of stores (the
change in the rupee exchange from ij. 4 d. in 1914 to is. 6 d. in
1933 diminished the number of rupees required in India to
pay this, but the fall in the Indian price level from 147 in
1914 to 121 in 1933 more than counterbalanced this, and made
the burden to India equivalent to £30 million in 1914 values).

Between 1851 and 1901 the excess of exports from India
(merchandise and treasure combined) multiplied threefold,
from £3-3 million to £11 million (merchandise from £7-2
million to £27^4 million). But in the twentieth century this
excess began to rise very much more rapidly. Between 1901
and 1913-14 it rose from £11 million to £14-2 million
(merchandise only, £38^4 million). 1913-14 was, however,
below the average; if the average of the five pre-war years
1909-10 to 1913-14 is taken, the annual net excess of exports
was £22*5 million, or double the level of 1901 in the period
of a decade (see “ Report of the Indian Fiscal Commission ”,
1922, p. 20).

By 1933-34 the net excess of exports from India had reached
the total of £69-7 million, of which £26-8 million represented

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 1 37

merchandise and £42-9 million represented treasure. This
last abnormally high figure reflected the drawing of gold from
India to assist sterling in the crisis. If, for purposes of better
comparison, the average of the five-year period 1931-32 to
1 935-36 is taken, the figure would be £59-2 million, or nearly
three times the level of the pre-war five-year period, and more
than five times the level of 1901.

If this increase in the direct tribute from India to England
(which leaves out of account the further exploitation through
the difference in the price level between Indian exports and
imports) since the middle of the nineteenth century is set out
in tabular form, it suggests at a glance in very striking fashion
the advance in the exploitation of India by England in the
modern period, even though it does not yet reveal more than
a part of the total process.

GROWTH OF TRIBUTE FROM INDIA TO ENGLAND
(In £ million)

1851.

1901.

1913-14-

■f 933-34-

Home Charges

2'5

I7'3

194

275

Excess of Indian

Exports

I 1-0

142

• 697

Or taking the five-year periods to give a more balanced picture
for the trade relations :

Annual Average of Five-Tear Periods
(In £ million)

‘851-55-

1897-

-1901.

1309-10 to
‘9‘3~‘4-

‘93‘~32 to
‘ 935-38 -

Excess of Indian
Exports .

4'3

15-3

22'5

59-2

What is here revealed in this steeply accelerating curve of
exploitation is something more than a quantitative increase;
it reflects a change in the quality and methods of exploitation.

The enormous and rapid increase in the tribute from India
to England during the second half of the nineteenth century and
accelerating increase in the twentieth century conceal in reality
E 2

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

the emergence of new forms of exploitation, developing out of
the conditions of the period of free-trade nineteenth-century
capitalism, but growing into the new twentieth-century stage
of the finance-capitalist exploitation of India.

The requirements of nineteenth-century free-trade capitalism
compelled new developments of British policy in India.

First, it was necessary to abolish once and for all the Com¬
pany and replace it by the direct administration of the British
Government, representing the British capitalist class as a
whole. This was partially realised with the new 1833 Charter,
but only finally completed in 1858.

Second, it was necessary to open up India more com¬
pletely for commercial penetration. • This required the
building of a network of railroads; the development of
roads ; the beginnings of attention to irrigation, which
had been allowed to fall into complete neglect under British
rule; the introduction of the electric telegraph, and the
establishment of a uniform postal system; the first limited
beginnings of an Anglicised education to secure a supply of
clerks and subordinate agents; and the introduction of the '
European banking system.

All this meant that, after a century of neglect of the most
elementary functions of government in Asia in respect of
public works, the needs of exploitation now compelled a
beginning to be made, although in an extremely one-sided
and lop-sided fashion (while thwarting and strangling industrial
development), directed only to meet the commercial and
strategic needs of foreign penetration, and on extremely ,
onerous financial terms to the people.

Lord Dalhousie’s famous minute on Railways in 1853,
which gave the first decisive stimulus to large-scale railway
construction, set out the commercial aim, to develop India
as a market for British goods and a source of raw materials,
with explicit clearness :

“ The commercial and social advantages which India
would derive from their establishment are, I truly believe,
beyond all present calculation. . . . England is calling
aloud for the cotton which India does already produce in
some degree, and would produce sufficient in quality, and
plentiful in quantity, if only there were provided the fitting

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 1 39

me^ins of conveyance for it from distant plains to the several
ports adopted for its shipment. Every increase of facilities
for trade has been attended, as we have seen, with an
increased demand for articles of European produce in the
most distant markets of India. . . . New markets are
opening to us on this side of the globe under circumstances
which defy the foresight of the wisest to estimate their
probable value or calculate their future extent.”

(Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General 1848-56, minute
on Railways, 1853.)

But this process of active development, and especially of
railway construction, necessitated by the requirements of
industrial capital for the commercial penetration of India
(as well as for a market for the iron, steel and engineering
industries), carried with it an inevitable further consequence,
which was to lay the foundations for a new stage — the develop¬
ment of British capital investments in India.

In the normal formula of imperialist expansion this process
would be spoken of as the export of capital. But in the case
of India, to describe what happened as the export of British
capital to India would be too bitter a parody of the reality.
The amount of actual export of capital was very small. Only
over the seven years 1 856-62 in the whole period up to 1 9 1 4 was
the normal excess of exports replaced by an excess of imports,
totalling £22-5 million for the seven years — not a very large
contribution for an ultimate total of capital investments
estimated at close on £500 million by 1914. Over the
period as a whole the export of capital from Britain to India
was more than counterbalanced many times over by the
contrary flow of tribute from India to England, even while
the capital was being invested. Thus the British capital invested
in India was in reality first raised in India from the plunder of the
Indian people, and then written down as debt from the Indian people to
Britain, on which they had thenceforward to pay interest and dividends.

The nucleus of British capital investments in India was
the Public Debt — that favourite device already employed by
the oligarchy in Britain to establish its stranglehold. When
the British Government took over in 1858, they took over a
debt of £70 million from the East India Company. In
reality, as Indian writers have calculated, the East India

140

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

Company had withdrawn in tribute from India over £150
million, in addition to the charges for the cost of wars waged
by Britain outside India — in Afghanistan, China and other
countries. On any correct drawing of accounts, there was
thus a balance owing to India; but this naturally did not
prevent the debt being taken over and rapidly increased.

In the hands of the British Government the Public Debt
doubled in eighteen years from £70 million to £140 million.
By 1900 it had reached £224 million. By 1913 it totalled
£274 million. By 1936 it totalled £719 million, divided
into 458 crores of rupees (£343‘5 million) of Indian debt,
and £376 million of sterling debt or debt in England. Thus
in the three-quarters of a century of British direct rule the
debt multiplied more than ten times.

Especially significant was the growth of the proportion
of the sterling debt in England. As late as 1856, at the end
of the Company’s rule, the debt in England was still under
£4 million. By i860 it had leapt to £30 million, by 1880
to £71 million, by 1900 to £133 million, by 1913 to £177
million, and by 1936 to £376 million.

The origin of this debt lay, in the first place, in the costs
of wars and other charges debited to India, and later also
in the costs of the railway and public works schemes initiated
by the Government. The original £70 million had been
largely built up by the wars of Lord Wellesley, the first
Afghan Wars, the Sikh Wars and the suppression of the
rising in 1857. Of the next £70 million, by which the
British Government doubled the total in eighteen years, only
£24 million were spent on State railways and irrigation
works. Much of the rest of the debt was built up by the
system of charging to India every conceivable charge that
could be remotely or even fantastically connected with India
and British rule in India, even to the extent of debiting
India for the costs of a reception to the Sultan of Turkey in
London, for the maintenance of the diplomatic and consular
establishments of the United Kingdom in China and Persia,
for a war on Abyssinia, or for part of the expenses of the
Mediterranean fleet.

“ The burdens that it was found convenient to charge
to India seem preposterous. The costs of the Mutiny, the
price of the transfer of the Company’s rights to the Crown,

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA I41

the expenses of simultaneous wars in China and Abyssinia,
every governmental item in London that remotely related
to India down to the fees of the charwomen in the India
Office and the expenses of ships that sailed but did not
participate in hostilities and the cost of Indian regiments
for six months’ training at home before they sailed — all
were charged to the account of the unrepresented ryot.
The Sultan of Turkey visited London in 1868 in state, and
his official ball was arranged for at the India Office and the
bill charged to India. A lunatic asylum in Ealing, gifts
to members of a Zanzibar mission, the consular and diplo¬
matic establishments of Great Britain in China and in
Persia, part of the permanent expenses of the Mediter¬
ranean fleet and the entire cost of a line of telegraph from
England to India had been charged before 1870 to the
Indian Treasury. It is small wonder that the Indian
revenues swelled from £33 million to £52 million a year
during the first thirteen years of Crown administration,
and that deficits accumulated from 1866 to 1870 amount¬
ing to £ii| million. A Home Debt of £30,000,000 was
brought into existence between 1857 and i860 and steadily
added to, while British statesmen achieved reputations for
economy and financial skill through the judicious mani¬
pulation of the Indian accounts.” v

(L. H. Tenks, “ The Migration of British Capital to
1875 ”, pp. 223-4.)

The development of railway construction with State aid
and guarantees for the private companies undertaking them,
as well as later with direct State construction, enormously
swelled the debt. The system adopted was one of a Govern¬
ment guarantee of 5 per cent, interest for whatever capital
was expended by British investors in the construction of the
railways. It is evident that this system encouraged the most
extravagant and uneconomic expenditure. The first 6,000
miles up to 1872 cost £100 million, or over £16,000 a mile.
“ There was a kind of understanding ”, declared the former
Government auditor of railway accounts to the Parliamentary
Enquiry on Indian Finance in 1872, “ that they were not to
be controlled very closely . . . nothing was known of the
money expended till the accounts were rendered.” “ Enor¬
mous sums were lavished,” reported the former Finance

142 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

Minister in India, W. N. Massey, to the same Enquiry, “ and
the contractors had no motive whatever for economy. All
the money came from the English capitalist, and so long as
he was guaranteed five per cent, on the revenues of India,
it was immaterial to him whether the funds that he lent
were thrown into the Hooghly or converted into bricks and
mortar. ... It seems to me that they are the most ex¬
travagant works that were ever undertaken.”

Up to the end of the nineteenth century £226 million were
spent on railways, resulting, not in a profit, but in a loss of
£40 million, which fell on the Indian Budget. After the turn of
the century a profit was wrung out of the railways \ and at the
present day close on £10 million a year (£§• 7 million in 1933-
34) are transmitted from India to England for railway debt.

With the development of railway construction, and also
with the development of tea, coffee and rubber plantations
and a few minor enterprises, private capitalist investment
from Britain in India began to advance rapidly in the second
half of the nineteenth century.

In the same period private British banking began to
advance in India after the removal of the restrictions of the
Company’s monopoly. The Presidency Banks Act of 1876
regulated the three Presidency Banks under Government
protection, which later, in 1921, were amalgamated into the
all-powerful Imperial Bank of India. The Exchange Banks,
with headquarters outside India, especially the Chartered
Bank of India, Australia and China, which obtained its charter
in 1853, the Mercantile Bank of India, originating from an
earlier bank which obtained its charter in the same year,
the National Bank of India, dating from 1864, and the
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, dating from
1867 (the “ Big Four ” of the Exchange Banks), developed
their operations in India, in unison with the Presidency
Banks dominating finance, commerce and industry under
British control. The Indian Joint Stock Banks endeavoured
to make headway against their domination, but with small
success in face of the superior advantages enjoyed by the
foreign banks. By 1913 the foreign banks (Presidency Banks
and Exchange Banks) held over three-fourths of the total of
bank deposits, while the Indian Joint Stock Banks held less
than one-fourth.

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA

For 1909-10 Sir George Paish, in a paper read before the
Royal Statistical Society in 1911, estimated the total of
British capital investments in India and Ceylon (excluding
private capital other than of companies — i.e., capital for
which no documentary evidence was readily available) at
£365 million, composed as follows ( Journal of the Royal

Statistical Society, Vol. LXXIV, Part I, Jan. 2

1911, p. 186)

£ million

Government and municipal .

■ 182-5

Railways .

• I36-5

Plantations (tea, coffee, rubber)

. 24-2

Tramways .

4-1

Mines .

3’5

Banks .

3-4

Oil .

3-2

Commercial and Industrial

2-5

Finance, Land and Investment

i-8

Miscellaneous ....

3'3

It will be seen from this very instructive list that the pro¬
cess of British capitalist investment in India, or so-called
“ export of capital ”, did not by any means imply a develop¬
ment of modern industry in India. 97 per cent, of the
British capital invested in India before the war of 1914 was
devoted to purposes of Government, transport, plantations
and finance — that is to say, to purposes auxiliary to the
commercial penetration of India, its exploitation as a source
of raw materials and market for British goods, and in no
way connected with industrial development.

The estimate of Sir George Paish was admittedly a con¬
servative estimate, leaving certain unknowable elements out
of account. Other estimates of British capital investments
in India before 1914 placed the total at £450 million (H. E.
Howard, in “India and the Gold Standard”, in 1911),
and at £475 million (the Economist of February 20, 1909, in
an article on “ Our Investments Abroad ”).

2. Finance-Capital and India
While the basis for the finance-capitalist exploitation of
India was thus in general laid before the first world war,

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

144

its fuller working out was only to be reached in the subsequent
period.

The new basis of exploitation of India by British finance-
capital, growing out of the conditions of the already existing
industrial capitalist and trading exploitation of India, was
from the outset, as the analysis by Sir George Paish of the
composition of the capital invested in India by 1909-10
showed, auxiliary to the trading process and not replacing
it. Nevertheless, a change in proportions developed of
decisive significance for the modern era.

The British nineteenth-century industrial monopoly and
domination of the world market began to weaken in the
fourth quarter of the nineteenth century. In other parts of
the world the decline before the new European and American
rivals was marked. In India the decline was far slower,
because the stranglehold was tenaciously held with the aid
of political sovereignty. Even up to the war of 1914 Britain
held fast nearly two-thirds of the Indian market against all
the rest of the world. Yet also in India the decline slowly
but steadily developed from the end of the third quarter of
the nineteenth century.

In the five years 1874-79 the British share of Indian imports
was 82 per cent., in addition to 11 per cent, for the rest of
the Empire, leaving less than one-fourteenth of the Indian
market for the outside world. By 1884-89 the British 82 per
cent, had fallen to 79 per cent. By 1899-1904 it had fallen
to 66 per cent. By 1909-14 it had fallen to 63 per cent.

But at the same time the profits on invested capital and
the volume of home charges were steadily rising. The total
trade between Britain and India in 1 91 3-14 amounted to
£117 million; a rate of 10 per cent, commercial profit on
all goods handled, whether exported from Britain or India,
would give £12 million. If to this is added an extra 10 per
cent, manufacturers’ profits on all British goods exported to
India (£8 million on £78 million), and £8 million shipping
income (according to the Board of Trade investigation in
1913 estimating India’s share of the total earnings of United
Kingdom shipping, which amounted to £94 million in 1913,
at 9 per cent.), this would make a maximum total of £28
million for British trading, manufacturing and shipping
profits from India in 1913.

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 145

But the total of British capital investments in India was
estimated by 1911, according to H. E. Howard in “India
and the Gold Standard ”, to have reached £450 million, and
by the eve of the war of 1914 is believed to have stood at over
£500 million. If the average rate of interest on this is made
as low as 5 per cent., this would yield £25 million, to which
must be added a proportionate figure for the profits and
earnings of all that section of the capital representing com¬
panies other than trading companies operating in India
(plantations, coal-mines, jute, etc., often paying dividends
as high as 50 per cent.), as well as the income from financial
commissions, exchange transactions, other banking opera¬
tions and insurance; putting this at the lowest estimate at
another £15 million, this would give a total of £40 million
for the net return. At the same time home charges exclusive
of interest on debt had risen to £9 million by 1913- 14, bring¬
ing the total for the profits on capital investments and direct
tribute to close on £50 million.

Any such estimates can only be of very limited value for
purposes of comparison. But it is evident that by 1914 the
interest and profits on invested capital and direct tribute
considerably exceeded the total of trading, manufacturing
and shipping profits out of India. The finance-capitalist ex¬
ploitation of India had become the dominant character in the twentieth
century.

The war of 1914-18 and the subsequent period enormously
accelerated this process. The British share of the Indian
market fell from two-thirds to a little over one-third. Japanese,
American and eventually renewed German competition
pressed forward, despite tariffs and imperial preference.
Indian industrial production made advances, principally in
light industry, despite very considerable obstacles, financial
difficulties and the deadweight of official discouragement,
which was open in the pre-1914 period and continued in
more veiled forms in the period following the war.

Between 1913 and 1931-32 the United Kingdom’s share
of Indian imports fell from 63 per cent, to 35 per cent. Sub¬
sequently the Ottawa preferential measures, imposed despite
Indian protests, forced up the proportion to 40 per cent, by
1934-35; but it sank again to 38-8 per cent, by 1935-36
and to 38-5 per cent, in 1936-37. Japan’s proportion rose

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

146

from 2-6 per cent, in 1913-14 to 16-3 per cent, in 1935-36;
Germany’s from 6-g to 9-2 per cent, in the same period;
that of the United States from 2-6 to 6-7 per cent. ( Economist ,
February 13, 1937).

For the more recent years the administrative separation
of Burma since 1937 affects the official statistics. The
“ Review of the Trade of India in 1937-38 ”, issued by
Dr. T. E. Gregory, Economic Adviser to the Government
of India, shows the following proportions of the share of the
Indian market (excluding Burma) :

PROPORTIONS OF INDIAN IMPORTS
(per cent.)

‘935-3S-

1936-37-

t937-36-

United Kingdom .

31-7

31-0

299

Burma .

*7-5

i9'3

i4'9

Japan .

130

1 3’3

12-8

Germany

7'9

8-8

United States

5’b

5‘3

Britain still holds the lion’s share— more than the combined
total of its three main competitors, Japan, Germany and the
United States. But the lion’s share is becoming increasingly
restricted, and the lion has been having to use its claws more
and more desperately, against both foreign and Indian com¬
petition, to maintain its share. Since 1936 India (even
including Burma) is no longer Britain’s principal customer,
as it had been for a century past, but fell in 1937 to second
place and in 1938 to third place.

This sharp decline, developing most rapidly in the post-
1918 period, in Britain’s share in the Indian market reflects
above all the catastrophic collapse in what had been the
main field of nineteenth-century industrial capitalist exploita¬
tion of India — the export of cotton goods. The Balfour
Committee on Industry and Trade found that the export of
British cotton piece-goods to India had declined by 57 per
cent, between 1913 and 1923. In 1913 it amounted to
3,057 million yards, or nearly half of Lancashire’s total
exports of 7,075 million. By 1928 it had fallen to 1,452
million, and by 1936-37 to 334 million.

But while the old basis was thus collapsing, the new basis

■

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 147

of profits by finance-capitalist exploitation was steadily rising
and extending in volume. By 1929 the total of British capital
investments in India was estimated in the Financial Times by
the former Secretary of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce,
Mr. Sayer, at £573 million on the most conservative basis,
and more probably £700 million. His calculation gave the
following distribution :

£ million

Government Sterling Debt
Guaranteed Railway Debt

5 per cent. War Loan .

Investments in Companies registered in India
Investments in Companies registered outside
India .

261

120

100

The figure of £175 million for companies operating in India
was stated to be almost certainly an under-estimate, and a
real total of £700 million for all investments “ would prob¬
ably not be very wide of the mark He added :

“ The importance of our financial stake in India is fully
recognised, probably, only by a limited number of experts.
Most people have no real conception of either its magnitude
or diversity. Many merchants, bankers and manufacturers
who are actually engaged in the trade, would probably find
it hard to arrive at even an approximate computation of
the actual amount of the capital and services which is
represented. External capital enters India in such a
number of forms that any calculation must be largely
guesswork.” ( Financial Times, January 9, 1930.)

The most recent ’estimate, for 1933, put forward by the
British Associated Chambers of Commerce in India, would
make the total £1,000 million, represented by £379 million
Government Sterling Debt, £500 million for companies
registered outside India and operating in India, and the
balance for investments in companies registered in India and
miscellaneous investments.

This total of £1,000 million would represent no less than
one-quarter of the estimated total of £4,000 million of British
foreign investments throughout the world. When Sir George
Paish made his estimate in 191 1, he found that British capital

148 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

investments in India represented 1 1 per cent, of the total of
British capital investments throughout the world. The advance
from one-ninth to one-quarter, from 11 per cent, to 25 per cent., is a
measure of the increasing importance of India to British finance-
capital to-day, and a key to modern imperialist policy and the new
Constitution, with its special provisions for safeguarding British
financial interests in India.

What is the value of the total tribute drawn from India to
England each year by the modern imperialist methods of
exploitation? An attempt to estimate this was made by the
Indian economists, K. T. Shah and K. J. Khambata, in
their “ Wealth and Taxable Capacity of India ”, published
in 1 924. Basing their calculations on the available statistics for
the year 1921-22, they reached the following result (sterling
equivalents at the average current exchange of is. 4 d . in
1921-22 have been added to their estimates in rupees) :

ANNUAL TRIBUTE FROM INDIA TO BRITAIN
AND ABROAD (1921-22)

Rupees

millions.

.£

millions.

Political deductions or Home Charges

500

33-3

Interest on Foreign Capital registered in

India ......

600

40* 0

Freight and Passenger Carriage paid to

Foreign Companies ....

416-3

27-7

Payments on account of Banking Com-

missions ......

150

IOO

Profits, etc., of Foreign Business and Pro-

fessional men in India ....

532-5

35-5

2,198-8

1 46- 5

This total of roughly 220 crores of rupees (2,200 million rupees)
or nearly £150 million, is equivalent to over £3 per head
of the population in Britain, or nearly £1,700 a year for
every supertax payer in Britain at the time of the estimate.

A more recent attempt to estimate the total tribute, after
the fall in prices from the very high level of 1921-22, has
been made by Sir M. Visvesvaraya in his “ Planned Economy
for India ”, published in 1934. He reaches the following
result (sterling equivalents at the current exchange of is. 6 d.
have been added to his estimate in rupees) :

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA

149

Rupees

millions.

,£

millions.

British and foreign shipping service .

350

Exchange and other commission payable to

foreign banks .....

210

Business gains, salaries, etc., of persons of
British nationality engaged in Indian

industries ......

400

Interest on British investments in India

650

1,610

121

This estimate is “ exclusive of official remittances to England
for pensions and other Home Charges, and liabilities to non-
Britishers who have trade relations with India ”. The figure
for Home Charges, other than interest on debt, in 1933-34
would add another £\\ million, and bring the total to
£135 million. Since the Index of Indian Prices fell from
236 in 1921 to 121 in 1933, it would appear that this total,
if correctly estimated, would represent a considerable increase
on that of a decade earlier. In the absence of exact statistics
of many items, however, these estimates can only afford a
rough indication.

After allowing the fullest margin of variation for the factors
that cannot be exactly calculated, the broad conclusion is
evident and inescapable that the exploitation of India in
the modern period is far more intensive than in the old. It
was estimated that in the three-quarters of a century of
British rule up to the taking over by the Crown, the total of
tribute withdrawn from India had amounted to £\ 50 million.
In the modern period, during the last two decades, it is
estimated that the total annual tribute from India to England
is in the neighbourhood of £135 million to £150 million.
This intensified exploitation of India under the conditions
of finance-capitalism underlies the present gathering crisis
and intensified revolt against imperialism in India.

3. The Question of Industrialisation

The view is sometimes put forward that the development of
the modern finance-capitalist era of British rule in India,
especially since the 1914-18 war, even though leading to
intensified exploitation, has at any rate led to advancing

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

150

industrialisation and economic development in place of the
previous decay under the domination of free-trade industrial
capitalism. Modern imperialist propaganda, which en¬
deavours to present India as one of the “ leading industrial
nations ” of the world (the British Government’s bombastic
claim at Geneva in 1922, based on highly dubious statistics,1
in order to secure an additional seat on the Governing Body
of the International Labour office) encourages this view, and
professes in principle to adopt a benevolent attitude to
industrial development in India.

An examination of the facts will show that this view is
far from justified. A measure of industrial development has
taken place in India in the modern period, both before the
war of 1914 and especially since, but in no sense comparable
to other major extra-European countries in the same period.
Such industrial development as has taken place has in fact
had to fight its way against intense opposition from British
finance-capital alike in the financial and in the political
field. It has taken place in a lop-sided fashion, principally
in light industry, with very weak development in the decisive
heavy industries. As the preliminary examination in Chapter
II has already indicated, it is impossible yet to speak of any
general process of industrialisation having taken place in India.

Up to 1914, the opposition of imperialism to industrial
development in India was open and unconcealed. The same
attitude which had governed British relations to America
before the War of Independence, and which had imposed an
absolute prohibition on the erection of steel furnaces in the
American colonies (Adam Smith, “ Wealth of Nations ”, Vol.
IV, vii, 2), governed British policy to India up to 1914. As Sir

1 Lord Chelmsford, on behalf of the Indian Government, declared at
the session of the Council of the League of Nations in October, 1922 :

“It remains to justify India’s specific claim to inclusion among the
eight States of chief industrial importance. Her claim is based on broad
general grounds and does not need elaborate statistical methods to
justify it. She has an industrial wage-earning population which may be
estimated at roughly twenty millions.”

He omitted to explain that this figure of “ twenty million industrial wage-
earners ” was composed mainly of hand-workers and domestic industry,
that the total number of industrial wage-earners in establishments employ¬
ing ten persons or over, as recorded by the Industrial Census of 1921, was
2-6 millions, of whom nearly 1 million were plantation workers, and not
industrial, and that the total number of workers coming under the Factories
Act was 1 -3 millions.

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA I5I

Valentine Chirol wrote in 1922 of the official “jealousy to¬
wards purely Indian enterprise ” which was open until the
1914 war:

“ Our record in regard to Indian industrial development
has not always been a very creditable one in the past,
and it was only under the pressure of war necessities that
Government was driven to abandon its former attitude of
aloofness if not jealousy towards purely Indian enterprise.”

(Sir Valentine Chirol, in the Observer, April 2, 1922.)

Similarly the Government annual report of 1921 wrote:

“ Some time prior to the war certain attempts to en¬
courage Indian industries by means of pioneer factories
and Government subsidies were effectively discouraged
from Whitehall.”

(“ Moral and Material Progress of India, 1921 ”,
p. 144.)

As Sir John Hewett declared in 1907:

“ The question of technical and industrial education
has been before the Government and the public for over
twenty years. There is probably no subject on which
more has been written or said, while less has been
accomplished.”

(Sir John Hewett, Lieutenant-Governor of the United
Provinces at the Indian Industrial Conference, 1907.)

The incident referred to by the Government Report of 1 92 1
with regard to the “ effective discouragement from Whitehall ,r
of Indian industrial development followed on the establish¬
ment of a Department of Commerce and Industries, on the
initiative of Lord Curzon, in 1 905, and the appointment by
the Madras Government of a Director of Industries in 1908.
The operations of the Madras Department of Industries
“ aroused the opposition of the local European commercial
community, who interpreted them as a serious menace to
private enterprise and an unwarrantable intervention on the
part of the State in matters beyond the sphere of Government ”
(Indian Industrial Commission Report, p. 70). In 1910
the embargo of Whitehall descended on the experiment in
the shape of a damning dispatch signed by the Secretary of
State, Lord Morley :

152

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

“ I have examined the account which the Madras
Government have given of the attempts to create new
industries in the province. The results represent consider- ■
able labour and ingenuity, but they are not of a character
to remove my doubts as to the utility of State effort in this
direction, unless it is strictly limited to industrial instruction
and avoids the semblance of a commercial venture. . . .
My objections do not extend to the establishment of a
bureau of industrial information, or to the dissemination
from such a centre of intelligence and advice regarding
new industries, processes or appliances, provided that
nothing is done calculated to interfere with private enter¬
prise.”

(Lord Morley, Dispatch of July 29, 1910.)

The “ deadening effect ” of this Dispatch was recorded by the
Indian Industrial Commission Report (p. 4).

The discouragement of Indian industrial development was
not confined to administrative action or inaction, but was
supplemented by positive tariff policy. When the very weak
Indian cotton industry began to develop in the eighteen sixties
and eighteen seventies, agitation was immediately raised in
England for the abolition of the revenue import duties which
operated also on cotton goods. A memorial to this effect was
presented by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce in 1874,
and a resolution adopted by the House of Commons in 1877.
Lord Salisbury, in forwarding this resolution to the Indian
Government, made fully clear its purpose when he pointed with
alarm to the fact that “ five more mills were about to begin
work ; and that it was estimated that by the end of March,
1877, there would be 1,231,284 spindles employed in India”
(letter of Lord Salisbury to the Governor-General, August
30, 1877). Accordingly, in 1879 the import duties on coarser
cotton goods, where there was competition, were removed,
and in 1882 all import duties, excepting on salt and liquors,
were abolished. When in 1894 financial requirements led to
the re-imposition of a general import duty, including on
cotton goods, the new device was invented of imposing
an excise duty on all Indian mill-woven cloth, an impost
without parallel in the economic history of any country.
This excise duty, which was fixed at 3^ per cent, in 1896,
remained in full force till 1917, when its effect was partially

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA I53

diminished by the raising of the import duty from 3^ to i\
per cent., and was only finally abolished in 1925 (in fact
under pressure of a strike of the mill-workers).

Under these conditions industrial development up to 1914
was extremely slow and slight. By 1914 the number of in¬
dustrial workers under the Factories Act was only 951,000.
The development that took place was mainly confined to the
cotton industry, where Indian capital was endeavouring to
push its way forward, and the jute industry, where British
capital sought to use cheap labour in India as a profitable
weapon against the demands of the British jute-workers.
Engineering was only represented by repair workshops,
chiefly for the railways; the barest beginning with iron and
steel was just being made on the eve of the 1914 war ; there was
no production of machinery.

With the first world war a complete reversal of policy was
proclaimed by the Government. Industrialisation was
officially set out as the aim in the economic field, just as
responsible government was declared to be the aim in the
political field. The first proclamation of the new policy was
made by the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, in 1915:

“ It is becoming increasingly clear that a definite and
self-conscious policy of improving the industrial capa¬
bilities of India will have to be pursued after the war,
unless she is to become the dumping ground for the manu¬
factures of foreign nations who will be competing the more
keenly for markets, the more it becomes apparent that the
political future of the larger nations depends on their
economic position. The attitude of the Indian public
towards this question is unanimous, and cannot be left out
of account. . . .

“ After the war India will consider herself entitled to
demand the utmost help which her Government can afford
to enable her to take her place, so far as circumstances
permit, as a manufacturing country.”

(Lord Hardinge, Dispatch to the Indian Secretary,
November 26, 1915.)

Following this, the Indian Industrial Commission was
appointed in 1916, under the chairmanship of Sir Thomas
Holland, the President of the Institute of Mining Engineers,

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

154

and reported in 1918. The Montagu-Chi lmsford Report
on Indian Constitutional Reforms in 1918 equally set out
the aim :

“ On all grounds a forward policy in industrial develop¬
ment is urgently called for, not merely to give India
economic stability, but in order to satisfy the aspirations of
her people. . . .

“ Both on economic and military grounds Imperial
interests also demand that the natural resources of India
should henceforth be better utilised. We cannot measure
the access of strength which an industrialised India will
bring to the power of the Empire.”

(Montagu-Chelmsford Report, p. 267.)
The reasons for this proclaimed change of policy arose from
the conditions of the war, and may be clearly discerned from
the official statements. Three main groups of reasons may be
distinguished.

First, military strategic reasons. The war conditions,
the cutting down of communications and supplies, and not
least the Mesopotamian scandals, laid bare the weakness of
the old-style Indian Empire and of the whole British strategic
position in the East, owing to the failure to develop the most
elementary basis of modem industry in India and consequent
dependence for vital military needs on long-distance overseas
supplies. How strongly this consideration impressed itself
on the British rulers was expressed in the Montagu-Chelms¬
ford Report, which calculated on the necessity to modernise
India as the base for “ Eastern theatres of war ” :

“ The possibility of sea communications being tem¬
porarily interrupted forces us to rely on India as an ordnance
base for protective operations in Eastern theatres of war.
Nowadays the products of an industrially developed
community coincide so nearly in kind though not in
quantity with the catalogue of munitions of war that the
development of India’s natural resources becomes a matter
of almost military necessity.”

Second, competitive economic reasons. Foreign competitors
were beginning to break down the British monopoly in the
Indian market, and the weakening of the British industrial
position through war needs threatened to open the way to a

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA I55

rapid further foreign advance after the war and the loss of the
Indian market. The danger, as Lord Hardinge explained,
was that India would become “ the dumping ground for the
manufactures of foreign nations A system of tariffs to
prevent this would serve two purposes. In the first place, in
so far as the foreign industrialist was replaced by the develop¬
ment of industry within India, the British financial and political
domination could secure a more favourable possibility to
extract the ultimate profit for British capital than if the market
were lost to an independent foreign capitalist Power. In the
second place, the establishment of a tariff system could prepare
the way for imperial preference to assist Britain to win back
the Indian market.

Third, inner political reasons. To maintain control of
India during the war and in the disturbed period succeeding
the war it was essential to secure the co-operation of the
Indian bourgeoisie, and for this purpose it was necessary to
make certain concessions and promises of concessions, economic
and political, of a character to win their support. “ The
attitude of the Indian public ”, as Lord Hardinge was
scrupulous to point out, “ cannot be left out of account.”

The method adopted to carry out the change of policy was
the development of a protective tariff system. The first step
to this was the raising of the duty on cotton piece-goods to
per cent, in 1917, and to 11 per cent, in 1921, while the
excise duty remained at 3J per cent, until its final removal in
1925. The general import duty was raised to 1 1 per cent, in
1921 and to 15 per cent, in 1922. A Fiscal Commission was
appointed in 1921 and reported in 1922 in favour of “ dis¬
criminating protection ” by a procedure of detailed enquiry
in each case, while a Minute of Dissent by five Indian members
favoured full protection. The Tariff Board recommended by
the Report was set up in 1923. The first major issue to come
before it was the key issue of the iron and steel industry.
In 1924 the iron and steel industry secured protection at a
rate of 33 J per cent., as well as a system of bounties.

At this point the hopes of the Indian industrial capitalists
in an assisting forward policy on the part of the Government
were raised high. This was the period of the Swaraj Party, or
party of Indian progressive capitalism, which defeated the
“ non-co-operation ” policies of the Gandhist leadership at

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

156

the National Congress in 1923, and dominated the years
1923-26 with its policies, first of entering the Councils for the
purpose of conducting the fight from within, and eventually of
“ honourable co-operation

But these hopes were to receive heavy blows in the succeeding
years.

4. Setbacks to Industrialisation

The granting of protection and subsidies to the iron and
steel industry in 1924 represented the high-water mark of
Government assistance to industrial development after the
war of 1914-18. Thereafter a recession can be increasingly
traced.

The elaborate schemes of the Indian Industrial Com¬
mission for an Imperial Department of Industries, governing
a network of provincial departments in each province, came
to nothing. The central organisation was never set up, while
the provincial departments were handed over, like education,
to the “ transferred ” subjects — i.e., to be starved of funds
and then made the responsibility of Indian Ministers for the
consequent stagnation. The achievement reached by 1934
was described in the following terms by a competent outside
observer :

“ Unfortunately, the central organisation has not yet
been set up; and, with the constitutional reforms of 1919,
the provincial organisation was made, along with education,
one of the ‘ transferred ’ subjects, and thus put in the hands
of local governments responsible to elected legislatures.
Unfortunately also, since the funds available have been
wholly inadequate, no very important policies could be
initiated. Furthermore, the encouragement of industry
requires a far-reaching unified government policy concern¬
ing not only raw materials and methods of production, but
markets as well. In fact, it must be associated with educa¬
tional policy and almost every other great national interest.
It is doubtful whether the mere provincial offices set up in
India will have any considerable effect.”

(D. W. Buchanan, “ The Development of Capitalist
Enterprise in India ”, 1934, pp. 463-4.)

A “ Central Bureau of Industrial Intelligence and Research ”
was more recently established, with the munificent allocation

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 1 57

of £37,500 for three years. It was announced that its main
attention would be devoted to — silk culture and hand-loom
weaving !

“ The practical results announced so far are that a
Central Bureau of Industrial Intelligence and Research
is about to be started on which 5 lakhs of rupees (£37,500)
is to be expended within the next three years, and that
sericulture and hand-loom weaving would engage the
attention of the new Bureau. Heavy industries, the greatest
need of the day, have been left severely alone, and long-
range proposals, if they have any, for the economic develop¬
ment of the country are kept undefined and shrouded in
mystery.”

(Sir M. Visvesvaraya, “ Planned Economy for India ”,
I936, P- 247-)

The Tariff Board received a series of further applications
from other industries for protection after the granting of the
protective duties to iron and steel in 1924. In the majority
of the cases, the most important being cement and paper, the
application was not endorsed. A notable exception was made
in the case of the match industry, which received a protective
duty ; the match industry represented foreign capital operat¬
ing in India.

Even more significant was the treatment accorded to the
iron and steel protective system when it came up for renewal
in 1927. The basic duties were lowered. The subsidies were
abolished. Most important of all, a new principle was intro¬
duced — the principle of imperial preference or favoured rates
for the entry of British manufactured goods.

Imperial preference now became the keynote of the tariff
system. By 1930 imperial preference was extended to cotton
piece-goods. In 1932 the Ottawa Agreements were reached,
and a general system of imperial preference was imposed on
India in the face of universal Indian protests and a hostile vote
of the Indian Legislative Assembly. The United Kingdom’s
share of Indian imports rose from 35-5 per cent, in 1931-32
to 40 6 per cent, in 1934-35. The duty on Japanese and other
non-British cotton goods was raised as high as 50 per cent,
(for a period, during the intense trade war in 1933, even to
75 per cent.), while that on British cotton goods was lowered to

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

158

20 per cent. Even the Tariff Board’s Report in 1933 against
imperial preference in the cotton industry was overridden.

The tariff system of the early nineteen-twenties, originally
proclaimed as a means for assisting Indian industry, was
thus transformed in the succeeding period into a system of
imperial preference for assisting British industry (while giving
India in return the privilege of favoured rates for the export
of raw materials and semi-manufactured goods — i.e., the
attempt to move backwards towards the pre-1914 basis).
It is evident that this transformed considerably the significance
of the tarifT system. Even the reactionary Curzon Govern¬
ment before the war of 1914 had opposed imperial preference
for India as involving a net loss for India. It was against the
British manufacturer as the biggest monopolist of the Indian
market that the Indian industrialist desired protection, no
less than against other foreign manufacturers. British
capitalism, on the other hand, desired tariffs in India primarily
against the invasion of the Indian market by non-British
competitors. Hence the conflict of interests. This conflict
found direct expression in the Indian Legislative Assembly,
when the Trade Agreement of January, 1935, embodying
and extending the Ottawa agreements to a still wider system
of imperial preference was defeated by a vote of 66 to 58.
The vote was overridden by the British Government, which
enforced the Agreement. The antagonism was in the open ;
the “ benevolent ” atmosphere of 1916-18 was far behind.1

The same process may be traced in the wider economic field.
Immediately after the war of 1914-18 the short-lived boom was
even more feverish in India than elsewhere. Colossal profits
were made by the cotton and jute mills. The average dividend
paid by the leading cotton mills in Bombay in 1920 was 120 per
cent.; in some cases it reached 200, 250 and even 365 per
cent. (Arno Pearse, “ The Cotton Industry of India ”.)
The average dividend paid by the leading jute mills was

1 The conflict has been still further shown in the negotiation of the new
Trade Agreement of March, 1939, between India and the United Kingdom.
This Agreement was rejected by the Indian Legislative Assembly in March,
1939, by 59 votes to 47 ; and the Committee of the Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce also declared its opposition. Once again the
vote of the Legislative Assembly was overridden, and the British Govern¬
ment enforced the Trade Agreement in the face of the opposition of
Indian representatives.

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA

J59

140 per cent., and even reached as high as 400 per cent.,
including bonus. The reports of forty-one jute mills, all
under British control, with a total capital of £6-i million,
showed for the four years 1918-21 no less than £22-9 million
profits, in addition to £19 million placed to reserves, or total
earnings of £42 million in four years on a capital of £ 6
million.

British capital flowed into India in these immediate post-war
years in the hope of sharing in these colossal profits. Previ¬
ously Sir George Paish had estimated for the years 1908-10
the average British capital export to India and Ceylon at
some £14 million to £15 million, or 9 per cent, of the total
British capital exports. In 1921 the figure rose to £29
million, or over a quarter of the total capital exports, in 1922
to £36 million, or again over a quarter, and in 1923 was still
£25 million or one-fifth. During the two years 1920-21 and
1921-22 there was even a nominal excess of imports, the only
time since 1856-62, the period of railway investment ; but this
in fact partly reflected the disastrous consequences of the
Government’s attempt to fix artificially the rupee at the high
rate of 2J., resulting in a premium on imports into India,
ruin for Indian exporters, and the expenditure of no less
than £55 million by the Government in the vain endeavour
to maintain this exchange.

But the crash followed from the end of 1920 and 1921,
accentuated by the Government’s exchange policy when the
abandonment of the 2t. rupee and the sudden drop to it. 4 d.
ruined the importers and led to defaults estimated at over
£30 million. Many of the Indian firms which were formed in
the post-war boom went bankrupt in the following years.
As soon as it became clear that the abnormal profits of the
post-war boom could not be expected to be continued, the
flow of British capital dried up. The total fell to £2-6 million
in 1 924, or less than a fiftieth part of British capital exports
that year; to £3-4 million in 1925, to £2 million in 1926,
and below £1 million in 1927, or less than half of 1 per cent,
of British capital exports.

The following figures of the pre-war and post-war British
capital export to India and Ceylon are instructive (the pre¬
war figures are those of Sir George Paish, the post-war those
of the Midland Bank returns) :

i6o

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

BRITISH CAPITAL EXPORTS TO INDIA AND CEYLON

Annual Average.

To India
and Ceylon.

Total

Overseas

Issues.

Per cent, to
India and
Ceylon.

1908-10 ....

(£ million.)
>4'7

(£ million.)
1723

8-5%

1921-23 ....

30-2

1290

23'7%

1925-27 ....

2*1

120-9

i-7%

1932-34 ....

4-2

3’i%

I934-36 ....

1-0

30- 2

3'3%

After the short post-war boom the proportion dropped below
the pre-war level.

No less instructive is the total capital of companies registered
in India, according to the official returns :

CAPITAL OF COMPANIES REGISTERED IN
BRITISH INDIA

19*4-15-

1924-25-

1934-35-

In million rupees .

802

2,662

2,914

In the decade between 1914 and 1924 the increase was no
less than 232 per cent., or an annual average of 23 per cent.
But in the following decade between 1924 and 1934 the
increase was only 9 per cent., or an annual average of
less than 1 per cent. Even after allowing for the change
in the price level, which affects these figures, the contrast
remains striking, and the setback after the short post-war
boom is inescapable.

In 1927 the Statist issued an index figure of the capital
of new companies registered in India, on the basis of 1914
as 100:

NEW CAPITAL ISSUES IN BRITISH INDIA

1914.

1921.

1922.

I923-

1924.

‘925-

1926.

1927-

Index of capital of
companies regis¬
tered each year .

100

221

On this heavy decline below the 1914 level the London
financial journal commented :

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 1 6 1

“ There can be little doubt but that the figures reflect a
definite setback in the economic development of the country.
For this setback the currency and exchange policy pursued
by the Government of India is not wholly without blame.”

{Statist, August 6, 1927.)

It is thus evident that the setback to Indian industrial
development was strongly marked already before the world
crisis. Indian firms went through a very difficult period in
the middle twenties. The Tata Iron and Steel Company,
the leader of the Indian capitalist advance to industrial
development outside cotton, found its 100-rupee shares fallen
to 10 rupees in 1926, and was compelled to come to the
London market for £2 million debentures. British finance-
capital strengthened its grip over Indian enterprise during
these years, after the temporary loosening of the reins in the
early post-war years.

A powerful further blow was struck at Indian industry by
the decision in 1927, following on the Report of the Hilton
Young Commission on Indian Finance and Currency in 1926,
to stabilise the rupee exchange at the high rate of ir. 6 d. in
place of the pre-war rate of is. 4 d. This policy of deflation
was carried in the face of the universal protest of Indian
capitalist opinion. “ It will hit the Indian producer ”,
declared Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas, the leader of Indian
capitalism, in his Minute of Dissent to the Currency Com¬
mission’s Report, “ to an extent beyond his capacity to bear.
It will hit, and hit very hard, four-fifths of the population of
the country that exists on agriculture.” At the same time
steps were taken to withdraw financial control still farther
away from even the remote possibility of Indian influence
by the decision to establish, in addition to the Imperial Bank
of India set up in 1921, a new Indian Reserve Bank, recom¬
mended by the Hilton Young Commission, and finally set up,
after a long struggle against Indian opposition, in 1934.

In this situation of already difficult conditions the world
economic crisis fell on India with heavier force than on any
other leading country, owing to India’s extreme dependence on
primary production. The value of Indian primary products,
on which four-fifths of the population were in practice de¬
pendent (this value governed also the market for the weak

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

l62

industrial development) fell by one-half. Between 1928-29
and 1932-33 the value of Indian exports of goods fell from
3,390 million rupees to 1,350 million rupees; the value of
Indian imports from 2,600 million rupees to 1,350 million
rupees. Yet the heavy payment of tribute, of interest on
debt and home charges, now doubled in weight by the fall of
prices, had to be maintained and was ruthlessly exacted.
For India there was no Hoover moratorium, as for Europe;
no frozen credits scheme, as for Germany; no repudiation of
debt payments, as for Britain with the American debt. The
tribute was paid by export of treasure. Between 1931 and
1935 no less than 32 million ounces of gold, valued at £203
million, were extracted from India ( Economist , December 12,
1936), or more than the total British gold reserve before the
crisis. During 1936 and 1937 further gold exports from India
amounted to £38 million ( Economist , April 2, 1938), or a
total of £241 million for the seven years 1931-37. This gold
represented the traditional form of savings of the peasantry
and poorer people in a country where banking or other forms
of saving are unknown among the masses of the people. By
this gold drain of 1931-37 the slender savings of the impover¬
ished Indian peasantry were scientifically extracted by British
finance-capital tp swell the British gold reserve, which rose,
according to the Report of the Bank of International Settle¬
ments, from the equivalent of 3,02 1 million gold Swiss francs
at the end of 1932 to 7,91 1 million by the end of 1936, or an in¬
crease of 1 62 per cent. Once again, in a new form, as in the days
of the Industrial Revolution, the measure of recovery of British
capitalism in 1933-37 was built up on the spoliation of India.

By the end of 1936 the Economist Indian Supplement reported
grimly on the progress of “ industrialisation ” :

“ The proportion of the population dependent upon
industry as a whole has tended to decline, and in some
industries — in particular, the jute and cotton industries—
there has in some years been an absolute decline in numbers
employed. . . .

“ Although India has begun to modernise her industries,
it can hardly be said that she is as yet being * industrialised
( Economist , Indian Supplement, “ A Survey of India
To-day ”, December 12, 1936.)

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA

163

5. The Balance-Sheet of Twenty Years
Twenty years have passed since the appointment of the
Indian Industrial Commission and the original glowing
promises of industrialisation in India. It is now possible to
take stock of the outcome after two decades — two decades
that have seen the triumph of socialist industrialisation in the
Soviet Union outstripping every other country in Europe and
Asia.

Undoubtedly a measure of industrial development has
taken place, carrying forward a development which had
already been proceeding before 1914 in the face of British
official opposition. A series of industries are beginning to
approach the level of the internal Indian market. The
Indian cotton mills, which in 1914 produced one-quarter
of the mill-produced cotton goods used in India, had
by 1934-35 reached three-fourths. The Indian steel industry,
which before the war was only just coming into existence, by
1932-33, according to the Tariff Board’s Report in 1934,
was supplying nearly three-quarters of the Indian market for
steel. This is, however, mainly a measure of the extreme
limitation of the Indian market for steel owing to the low
industrial development; the record steel output of 879,000
tons in 1935-36 was below the level of Poland in the same
year (with a population less than one-tenth that of India),
and less than one-sixth that of Japan in 1 936, or one-nineteenth
that of the Soviet Union.

Decisive, however, for industrialisation is not the develop¬
ment of the textile industries — which in any case had won
their basis in India before 1914 — but the development of
heavy industry, of iron, steel and the production of machinery.
And it is here that the weakness of India stands out. India
remains still wholly dependent on abroad for machinery.

“ Engineering and textiles partake of the nature of home
industries even though people are massed in power-driven
factories. In a cotton factory it is a question of adding
loom to loom or spindle to spindle. Engineering in repair¬
ing shops is essentially an individual affair. The real
change comes in any country when the iron and steel
industries begin to be successful. . . . The development of
the metallurgical industries means the real industrial

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

164

revolution. England, Germany and the United States of
America all started their iron and steel industries on the
modern scale before they started their textile factories.”

(L. C. A. Knowles, “ Economic Development of the
Overseas Empire ”, p. 443.)

This necessary order for real industrialisation has been still
more powerfully shown in the great socialist industrial revolu¬
tion in the Soviet Union, which concentrated in the first
Five-Year Plan on heavy industry in order then, in the second
Five-Year Plan, to carry forward the' advance in light industry.
India shows the typical inverted economic development of a
dependent colonial country.

If we compare the proportions of the population in industry
and agriculture before 1914 and to-day, the low level of the
industrial development in the intervening period becomes still
more apparent. According to the census returns, the numbers
dependent on industry actually decreased between 19 11 and
!93i, while the numbers dependent on agriculture increased.
The proportion of the population returned as dependent upon
industry fell from 1 1-2 per cent, in 1911 to 10-49 Per cent- in
1921 and to 10-38 per cent, in 1931.

Even more striking are the official returns of the actual
number of workers engaged in industry. These show a
marked absolute decline and a heavy relative decline pro¬
portionate to the total number of occupied workers.

PROPORTION OF WORKERS ENGAGED IN INDUSTRY,

1911-31

igu .

1921.

193*-

Percentage
of variation,
1911-31.

Population (in millions) .

315

3i9

353

+ 1 2* I

Working population (in millions)

149

146

154

+ 40

Persons employed in industries

(in millions)

175

15-3

— 12-6

Percentage of workers in indus-

try to the working population .

1 1-7

I o-o

Percentage of industrial workers

to the total population .

5'5

4’3

Thus in the twenty years recorded the number of industrial workers
fell by over 2 millions. While the population increased by

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 165

12 per cent., the proportion of those employed in industry
decreased by more than 12 per cent., and the percentage of
industrial workers to the total population decreased by more
than one-fifth.

The returns for the principal industries since 191 1 show the
same picture of decline :

DECLINING NUMBERS OF WORKERS IN PRINCIPAL
INDUSTRIES

1911.

1921.

*93i-

Textiles ....
Industries of dress and toilet .
Wood ....

Food industries .

Ceramics ....

4> 449)449
3.747.755

1.730,920

2,134,045

1,159,168

4,030,674

3,403,842

1,581,006

1,653,464

1,085,335

4,102,136

3,380,824

1,631,723

1,476,995

1,024,830

Thus the real picture of modern India is a picture of what
has been aptly called “ de-industrialisation ” — that is, the decline
of the old handicraft industry without the compensating
advance of modern industry. The advance of factory industry
has not overtaken the decay of handicraft. The process of
decay characteristic of the nineteenth century has been carried
forward in the twentieth century and in the post-war period.

The conclusion is inescapable. The picture of the “ in¬
dustrialisation ” of India under imperialist rule is a myth.
The overcrowding of agriculture has still further increased in
the latest period of imperialist rule.

“ Large as are the few industrial centres, factories furnish
direct support for a smaller group than was supported by
handicraft before the factory appeared. The country is
still annually importing far more manufactures than it
exports. While the proportions are gradually changing,
Indian economic life is still characterised by the export of
raw materials and the import of manufactures. In spite
of her factories and her low standard of living, India is less
nearly self-sufficient in manufactured products than she
was a century ago.”

(D. H. Buchanan, “ Development of Capitalist Enter¬
prise in India ”, 1934, p. 451.)

The total number of workers under the Factories Act in 1931

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

was i '5 million, or less than i per cent, of the working popula¬
tion ; if we add to these the 260,000 miners and the 820,000 '
railwaymen, the resulting total of 2-6 million industrial
workers in modern industry is still only ij per cent, of the
working population.

Not only that, but the rate of development since 1914, so
far from being marked by rapid industrialisation, is in some
respects slower than before 1914. The following table shows
the advance in the number of workers under the Factories Act
(until 1922 the Act applied to concerns employing fifty or
more workers, since then to those employing twenty or more,
and in some cases ten or more ; this alteration, in so far as it
affects the figures, is more favourable to the post-war figures,
and therefore strengthens the argument) :

AVERAGE DAILY NUMBER OF WORKERS IN FACTORIES
1897 ...... 421,000

1907 . 729,000

421,000

729,000

951,000

1,361,000

1,431,000

In the seventeen years between 1897 and 1914 the number
of factory workers increased by 530,000.

In the seventeen years between 1914 and 1931 the number
of factory workers increased by 480,000.

Thus not only has the rate of increase in the period since 1914
been markedly slower than before 1^14, but even the absolute increase
has been less.

Even in the cotton textile industry, where the advance has
been most marked, the advance has been far less in India than
in Japan or China. The following table shows the relative
growth in the number of spindles in India, Japan and China
between 1914 and 1930 (Buchanan, op. cit., p. 220) :

NUMBER OF SPINNING SPINDLES

1914.

1930.

Increase.

India

6,397,000

8,807,000

2,410,000

Japan .

2,414,000

6,837,000

4,423*000

China .

300,000

3,699,000

3,399,000

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 1 67

In India the advance has been 37 per cent. In Japan and
China the advance in the same period has been 188 per cent.
In 1914 India had more than twice as many spindles as Japan
and China together. To-day Japan and China (and much of
the Chinese advance has been under Japanese control) have
outstripped India.

What is the reason for this slow advance of industrialisation
in India under imperialism? Many as are the reasons in the
whole social structure in India for this arrested economic
development, the main reason lies in the imperialist system
itself, whose working is necessarily hostile to an independent
industrial development, and therefore cramps by every means
the forces within the Indian people which would otherwise
be able to overcome the other obstacles. Therefore all the
dreams and promises of industrialisation are continually
brought up against overpowering contradictions. The
colonial system of imperialism thwarts and retards the economic
development of the people in its grip.

These contradictions not only lie in the direct hostility of
opposing interests to Indian industrial development, and the
determination to hold and increase by every means the dwind¬
ling British share in the Indian market; they also lie in the
insoluble problems of the home market for Indian industry
under the conditions of imperialist exploitation, with the
extreme impoverishment of the agricultural population. The
tariff system does not solve, but increases this contradiction
by the additional burden it throws on the working peasantry.
The industrial question in India cannot be solved apart from the
question of agriculture, which involves the foundations of imperialist
rule. Finally, the contradictions lie in the strategic hold of
British finance-capital, which, by its command of all the
decisive strategic points, is able to hold Indian enterprise at
its mercy.

6. The Stranglehold of Finance-Capital

While in discussion outside India attention has been widely
fixed on the lavish talk of industrialisation, on the tariff conces¬
sions and on the weakening British hold in the Indian market,
there has been less awareness of the real tightening grip of
British finance-capital on Indian economy and its active
measures to maintain that grip against Indian advance.

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

1 68

Despite the advance of Indian capital, British capital
remains in effectively monopolist domination in banking,
commerce, exchange and insurance, in shipping, in the
railways, in the tea, coffee and rubber plantations, and in
the jute industry (where the now numerically larger Indian
capital is under British control). The whole political system
works to maintain this domination. In iron and steel Indian
capital has been forced to come to terms with British capital.
Even in the cotton textile industry, the home of Indian capital,
the degree of control of British capital through the “ managing-
agency ” system is considerably greater than is generally
realised.

The managing-agency system is peculiar to India and to
imperialist enterprise in other parts of Asia, and is one of the
leading weapons for maintaining British control of Indian
industrial development. By this system a relatively small
number of managing-agency firms promote, control and to a
considerable extent finance the various industrial companies
and enterprises, govern their operations and output, and
market their products, the boards of directors of the companies
fulfilling only a subordinate or even nominal role. The cream
of the profits passes, not to the shareholders, but to the manag¬
ing agency. According to the evidence given before the
Tariff Board Cotton Textile Enquiry in 1927, the commission
paid to the managing agents by the Bombay Cotton Mills
during the twenty years 1905-25 averaged 5-2 per cent,
annually on the paid-up capital. This would be additional
to any dividend on shares held by the managing agency, and
to commissions by the way on purchases and sales. Cases
have been reported in which cotton mills were making a loss,
at the same time as the managing agency was drawing a
commission bigger than the total loss of the mill it was
managing.

There are both Indian and English managing-agency firms ;
but the most powerful and oldest established, as well as,
naturally, those with the most effective connections with the
Government and with London, are English. Firms like
Andrew Yule and Co. or Jardine and Skinner are part of the
history of British rule in India. In the case of the Bombay
cotton industry, the “ Report of the Tariff Board Cotton
Textile Enquiry ” in 1927 revealed a significant picture of the

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 169

relation of forces on the basis of statistics covering 99 per cent,
of the Bombay cotton mills (Vol. I, p. 258, appendix xii ;
the present table was compiled from the information in this
appendix and printed in Labour Research of June, 1928) :

BOMBAY COTTON MILLS

Mills.

Spindles.

Looms.

Capital
(in million
rupees) .

wmmmm

1,1 12,1 14

22,121

989

Companies with Indian

managing agents (32)

2,360,528

51.580

977

From this it will be seen that the English managing agents,
while they controlled only 22 per cent, of the companies,
controlled 33 per cent, of the mills, 32 per cent, of the spindles,
30 per cent, of the looms and 50 3 per cent, or the actual
majority of the capital. This is in the industry which has been
the principal field of advance of Indian capital.

The subsequent economic crisis enabled the managing
agencies to extend their grip on the mills, and even in some
cases to expropriate the Indian shareholders, as was recorded
by the India Central Banking Enquiry Committee in 1931 :

“ Although it is true that in times of crisis such as Bombay
has been going through, Managing Agents have incurred
extensive losses as a direct result of financing the mills under
their control, there have been a few cases in which these
Agents have turned their loans to the mills into debentures,
with the result that the concerns have passed into their
hands and the shareholders have lost all their capital
invested in the undertaking.”

(Report of the Central Banking Enquiry Committee,
1931, Vol. I, p. 279.)

Most important, however, for the controlling power of
British finance-capital is the role of the foreign banking system
working in conjunction with the Government’s financial
and exchange policy. To talk of independent Indian capitalist
development, so long as financial power remains monopolised
in British hands, is, and can only be, an empty illusion.

F 2

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

I70

The modern banking system in India is organised through
four types or groups of institutions.

(1) The Reserve Bank of India, established by the Act of
1934 and functioning since 1935, constitutes the apex of the
pyramid. This Bank, like the Bank of England, is privately
owned and controlled, but holds in its hands the issue of
currency, the regulation of exchange and the conduct of the
Government’s banking and remittance business, and thus
controls credit in the same way as the Bank of England. The
Governor, two Deputy Governors, and five Directors are
nominated by the Government, but only six of these eight have
voting power ; as against these six votes of the Government’s
nominees, eight Directors are privately elected, with eight
votes. Thus it is protected by law from political control.
The object of setting up this new Central Bank in 1 935, at the
same time as the Government of India Act, was to ensure that,
even if the path of constitutional reform should eventually
bring a partial expression of Indian opinion into the central
government, the citadel of financial power should remain in¬
accessible, or, in the words of the London Times (February 1 1 ,
1928), protected from “ political pressure from which credit
and currency ought to be wholly free

(2) The Imperial Bank of India, established by the Act of
1920 by the amalgamation of the three former Presidency
Banks, and functioning since 1921. This is also privately
owned and controlled, though statutorily established, with an
authorised capital of £9 million. It was originally designed
as the Central Bank, combining the issue of currency and the
role of the Government’s banker with commercial functions.
By the amending Act of 1934 it acts now in unison with the
Reserve Bank, while continuing commercial functions. With
nearly two hundred branches and sub-agencies, and holding
one-third of all bank deposits in India, it dominates banking in
India. Of the directorate in 1936 eleven were English and
four Indian.1

1 Of the total paid-up share capital of the Imperial Bank of India in
1930, amounting to 56J million rupees, according to the information
supplied by the Managing Director of the Bank to the Central Banking
Enquiry Committee, 28-4 million were held by “ non-Indians ” and 27-8
million by “ Indians ” (Report, Vol. II, p. 264). This gives an absolute
majority to the “ non-Indians ” ; in fact a much smaller proportion, held
in the hands of a few controlling English holders in influential positions,
would be sufficient to secure the full effective English control that exists.

mptn-T-

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN IND.IA 1 7 1

(3) The Exchange Banks, or private British and foreign
banks in India. These are banks having headquarters out¬
side India, and are wholly non-Indian in character.1 They
control the financing of the export and import trade. There
were seventeen in number in 1936, the most important being
the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, the
Mercantile Bank of India, the National Bank of India, the
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the P. and O.
Banking Corporation, and Lloyds. They hold nearly one-
third of bank deposits in India.

(4) The Indian Joint Stock Banks, or private banks
registered in India, come at the bottom of the pyramid. Here!
alone Indian capital is able to play a part ; but even here some,
such as the Allahabad Bank, which is one of the largest and is
now affiliated to the P. and O. Banking Corporation, have
fallen under foreign control, so that their total strength cannot
be taken as a measure of Indian banking strength. They
have had to face heavy difficulties, and have had a number of
failures, including those of the People’s Bank of India, the
Indian Specie Bank and the Alliance Bank of Simla. Be¬
tween 1922 and 1928 no less than 100 Indian banks failed
{Economist, April 12, 1930). Their combined deposits are
under one-third of bank deposits in India.

The proportion of deposits held by the three groups of
banks — the Imperial Bank of India (before 1921, the three
Presidency Banks), the Exchange Banks and the Indian Joint
Stock Banks — in 1913, 1920 and 1933 is seen in the following
table.

BANK DEPOSITS

(in million rupees)

Imperial Bank of
of India ( or Presi¬
dency Banks).

Exchange

Banks.

Indian Joint

Stock Banks.

h.M

Amount.

Per cent.

Amount.

Per cent.

Amount.

Per cent.

1913

424

435

310

31-8

241

24-7

1920

870

369

748

316

735

316

749

33-6

7 1 4

320

768

34'4

1 In 1936 the establishment of the Central Exchange Bank of India by
the Central Bank of India represented the first attempt of Indian banking
to enter this field.

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

172

It will be seen that the English and foreign banks, the Imperial
Bank of India and Exchange Banks, dominate the situation.
Further, the main advance of the Indian Joint Stock Banks,
from one-quarter to one-third of total deposits, took place
between 1913 and 1920. Since then there has been a very
slow advance of the Indian Joint Stock Banks ; and when
allowance is made for a section of these falling under foreign
control, there has more probably been an actual retrogression
from the standpoint of Indian capital.

That the British control of banking in India has been used
to the detriment of Indian industrial and independent economic
development, and for the benefit of British interests, is the
strongly voiced complaint of Indian industrialists. As
typical maybe taken the statement of T. G. Goswami appended
to the External Capital Committee’s Report:

“ I should like to express the common belief — for which I
know there is a good foundation in actual facts — that racial
and political discrimination is made in the matter of credit,
and that Indians usually do not receive in matters of credit
the treatment that their assets entitle them to, while on
the other hand, British business men have frequently been
allowed larger credit than what on ordinary business
principles they ought to have got.”

(T. C. Goswami, Minute appended to the External
Capital Committee’s Report, p. 24.)

The Minority Report of the Indian Central Banking Enquiry
Committee endorsed this complaint. The Majority Report
recorded it with a significant silence and declaration of
suspension of judgement “ in the absence of fuller
information ” :

“ Some complaints have been made about racial dis¬
crimination on the part of officers of the Imperial Bank of
India when considering applications for credit. It has
been suggested that the European managers of the Bank
on account of their methods of living and social habits have
greater opportunities of coming in closer personal contact
with European clients than with Indians, and that this
personal information and contact result in more favourable
treatment being accorded to European concerns than to
Indian concerns.

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA m

173

“ It is further generally believed that the Bank lends to
European concerns more freely than to Indian concerns,
and that several Indian concerns which took the Bank’s
assistance have had bitter experience. It has been sug¬
gested that, while non-Indian concerns get fuller assistance
from the Bank, the assistance rendered to Indian concerns
is very small and falls much short of the actual requirements
of the concern. We have been furnished, through the
courtesy of the Imperial Bank of India, with the figures of
advances to Indian and non-Indian concerns; but in the
absence of fuller information regarding individual concerns,
we are unable to examine this complaint.”

(Majority Report of the Indian Central Banking
Enquiry Committee, 1931, Vol. I, pp. 271-2.)

Similarly Sir M. Visvesvaraya, Chairman of the Indian
Economic Enquiry Committee appointed by the Government
in 1925, writes:

“ One of the chief difficulties in starting industries in
India is finance. This arises from the fact that the money
power of the country is under the control of the Govern¬
ment which, as we have seen, does not see eye to eye with
Indian leaders in regard to industrial policies. Banks
under the control of Indian business men are very few, and
many of the larger banks are either under the influence of
Government, or are branches of British and foreign banks.”

(Sir M. Visvesvaraya, “ Planned Economy for India”,
p. 936, pp. 64-5.)

7. Finance-Capital and the New Constitution
It is evident from the above that the real domination of
British finance-capital has been powerfully maintained in the
modern period at the expense of independent Indian economic
development. This underlying basis of British domination
in the present period is of special importance when it comes to
the question of the new Constitution.

A careful examination of the detailed provisions of the
Government of India Act of 1935 will abundantly show that
there is no intention to allow the constitutional reforms to
weaken the real grip of British finance-capital on India, but
that it is rather intended and hoped through the new Con-

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

174

stitution to strengthen and confirm that hold. Indeed, it
might be said that this is the real key to the new Constitution.
Significant in this connection is the Government of India’s
statement on the Constitutional Reforms in 1930:

“ During the last ten years, in one branch of commerce
and industry after another, the evidence has been un¬
mistakable that important sections of Indian opinion
desire to secure the rapid development of Indian enterprise,
at the expense of what British firms have laboriously built
up over a long series of years. There is nothing surprising
in the fact that national consciousness should thus have
found expression. Indians who desire to see the growth of
Indian banking, Indian insurance, Indian merchant
shipping or Indian industries find themselves faced by the
long-established British concerns whose experience and
accumulated resources render them formidable com¬
petitors. In these circumstances, it may seem to them that
the ground is already occupied, and that there can be no
room for the growth of Indian commerce and industry until
the British firms can be cleared out of the way.

“ But, however natural such feelings may be, they might
lead, if allowed free scope, to serious injustice, and partly
as a consequence of this and partly for other reasons they
are fraught with grave danger to the political and economic
future of India. We feel real apprehension as to the
consequences which may ensue, if the present attitude of
mutual suspicion and embitterment is allowed to continue
and to grow worse. For this reason we regard it as of high
importance that the attempt should be made now to arrive
at a settlement which both parties can honourably accept.”

(Dispatch of the Government of India on the Con¬
stitutional Reforms, 1930.)

Here the basic aim peeps out. Behind the sweetly reasonable
language of the man in possession is revealed the real concern,
underlying the constitutional reforms, to safeguard the interests
of British finance-capital against the advance of Indian
capitalism, and to enforce on Indian capitalism such a
compromise as will secure the continued domination of British
finance-capital.

The economic and financial “ safeguards ” of the new

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA 1 75

Constitution are the open expression of this aim. By these
provisions, in the name of preventing economic or com¬
mercial “ discrimination ”, the British Governors are given
over-riding powers to prevent any action of the Indian
Ministries which might show favour to Indian commerce or
industry at the expense of British interests. The significance
of this was brought out in an instructive passage between Sir
Austen Chamberlain and Sir Samuel Hoare in the proceedings
of the Joint Select Committee on the Indian Reforms in 1933 :

“ Sir Austen Chamberlain : Suppose the Governor found
that tenders were awarded to Indian firms, irrespective of
price, I suppose you would hold that that was discrimination
and that the Governor should interfere ?

“ Sir Samuel Hoare : I should think certainly, in a case
of that kind, the Governor would demand an enquiry and
would satisfy himself that there had been discrimination.
If he was satisfied that there had been discrimination, he
would intervene.

“ Sir Austen Chamberlain : Take the case where tenders
are not called for publicly, but where it is alleged that the
Government, having both Indian and British firms well
fitted to tender, calls for tenders from the Indian firms only.
Would that be an occasion for the Governor to act?

“ Sir Samuel Hoare : I would certainly say it would be a
case for the Governor to hold an enquiry and satisfy himself
whether or not there had been discrimination.

“ Sir Austen Chamberlain : Would it be within his power,
if, as a result of the enquiry, he found there had been dis¬
crimination, to cancel the contract ?

“ Sir Samuel Hoare : His power is unlimited and
undefined.”

(Proceedings of the Joint Select Committee on the
Indian Constitutional Reforms, November 6, 1933.)

In this interchange the meaning of the economic and
financial “ safeguards ”, which are the necessary counter¬
part of the political “ safeguards ”, is stripped of all con¬
cealment. It is only necessary to call to mind the uproar
in the British Parliament (in which Sir Austen Chamberlain
and Sir Samuel Hoare would have been the first to take the
lead) if any suggestion is raised of a British Ministry falling to

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

176

favour British firms in its contracts. But if an Indian Ministry,
under the new conditions of “ responsible self-government ”,
should be found guilty of favouring Indian firms, the British
Governor is vested with “ unlimited and undefined ” power
to cancel its action.

The underlying meaning of the new Constitution, as the
cover for the maintenance of the domination of British
finance-capital in India, here receives typical expression in
this significant sidelight.

8. The Outcome of Imperialism in India

When Marx spoke of British rule as “ causing a social
revolution ” in India, and described England as “ the un¬
conscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution ”,
he had in mind, as his explanation made clear, a twofold
process.

First, the destruction of the old social order.

Second, the laying of the material basis for a new social
order.

These two factors still continue operating, although their
significance is to-day overshadowed by the characteristics of
the new stage of modern imperialism, which have grown out
of the preceding process.

The destruction of the old hand industry is still reflected in
the continuing diminution of the total number of industrial
workers, since that diminution is not yet balanced by the
slow advance of modern industry. The destruction of the
old village economy has now reached a stage of contradictions
which is driving to a general agrarian crisis.

At the same time the first beginnings of modern industry
have developed, as Marx predicted, although with extreme
slowness, out of the material basis laid by British rule; and
thereby have brought into being the new class in Indian
society, the industrial working class of wage-workers in
modern machine industry, who represent the creative force
of the new social order in the India of the future.

But to-day a new situation has come into being as a con¬
sequence of the further development of this process, which
has brought into existence forces that were not present when
Marx wrote. To-day the conditions within India have fully
ripened for a large-scale new advance of the productive

MODERN IMPERIALISM IN INDIA

177

forces to a modern level; and the need for this becomes
every year more urgent and inescapable. Modern im¬
perialism, on the other hand, no longer performs the objec¬
tively revolutionising role of the earlier capitalist domination
of India, clearing the way, by its destructive effects, for the
new advance and laying down the initial material conditions
for its realisation. On the contrary, modern imperialism in
India stands out as the main obstacle to advance of the
productive forces, thwarting and retarding their develop¬
ment by all the weapons of its financial and political domina¬
tion. It is no longer possible to speak of the objectively
revolutionising role of capitalist rule in India. The role of
modern imperialism in India is fully and completely re¬
actionary.

The old advancing capitalism in the first half of the nine¬
teenth century battered at the fabric of the old society in
India, even consciously led the assault against certain re¬
actionary religious and social survivals, laid low ruling
prince after prince to incorporate their dominions in its uniform
domination, made the first beginnings to spread Western
European education and conceptions, and even established
for a period the principle of freedom of the Press. During
this period the advancing elements in Indian society, that is,
the rising middle class, typically represented by Ram Mohan
Roy, supported British rule and sought to assist its endeavours ;
it was the decaying reactionary elements, the discontented
princes and feudal forces, which led the opposition, and whose
leadership culminated and foundered in the revolt of 1857.
No force was then capable of leading and voicing the ex¬
ploited and oppressed peasantry; and the revolt could only
end in defeat.

After the revolt of 1857 British rule in India began the
transformation of its policy. Modern imperialism in India
protects and fosters the princes as its puppets, and seeks
increasingly, as in its latest expression, the new Constitution,
to magnify their political role ; jealously guards and preserves
reactionary social and religious survivals against the demands
of progressive Indian opinion for their reform (as on the
questions of the age of marriage or the breaking of bans
against untouchables) ; holds down speech and thought in
an elaborate network of repression; and blocks the over-

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA

178

whelming demands of Indian opinion for social, educational
and industrial advance. By all these symptoms imperialism
in India reveals itself to-day as the main bulwark of reaction
in the social and political, no less than in the economic field.

Therefore all the advancing forces of Indian society in
the modern period unite in an ever more powerful national
movement of revolt against imperialism as the main enemy
and buttress of reaction ; while it is the reactionary decaying
forces that are to-day the most loyal supporters of imperialist
rule.

The rising productive forces in India are straining against
the fetters of imperialism and of the obsolete economic
structure which imperialism maintains and protects. This
conflict finds expression in the agrarian crisis, which is the
index of the bankruptcy of imperialist economy and the
main driving force to decisive change. It is possible to discern
the signs of the approaching agrarian revolution in India,
in the same way as it was possible to discern the signs in the
later years of Tsarist Russia or in late eighteenth-century
France. In India the developing agrarian revolution is
intertwined with the developing national democratic libera¬
tion movement against imperialist rule; and the union of
these two is the key to the new period of Indian history now
opening.

A study of the modern political situation in India, and of
the problems of the national struggle, must therefore begin
with a study of the agrarian problem.

PART III

THE BASIC PROBLEM OF INDIA—
THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

Chapter VIII. THE CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE

1 The Over-pressure on Agriculture

2 Consequences of the Over-pressure on Agriculture

3 Stagnation and Deterioration of Agriculture

Chapter IX. BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

1 The Land Monopoly

2 Transformation of the Land System

3 Creation of Landlordism

4 Impoverishment of the Peasantry

5 The Burden of Debt

6 The Triple Burden

Chapter X. TOWARDS AGRARIAN REVOLUTION

1 Growth of the Agrarian Crisis

2 The Necessity of the Agrarian Revolution

3 Failure of Government Reform Policies

4 Growth of the Peasant Movement

Chapter VIII : THE CRISIS OF
AGRICULTURE

“ The present deterioration in the position of the peasant forebodes an
agrarian revolution.” — Professor R. MuJcerjee, “ Land Problems of India ”, 1933.

The poverty and suffering of the mass of the Indian peasantry
are among the most terrible in the world. In one of the
best-known recent works on the agrarian problem in India,
“ Land Problems of India ”, Professor Radhakamal Mukerjee
describes the situation in the following terms :

“ The agricultural population of India now works on
very meagre resources, which, if we consider the well¬
being of the peasants themselves, are very poorly dis¬
tributed. Our examination of the changes in landowner-
ship and tenantry during the last fifty years will show that
this maldistribution is growing worse. The economic
position of the small holder has deteriorated, while the
contrast between landlords and expropriated peasants,
between the increasing class of rent-receivers and the
toiling agricultural serfs, betokens a critical stage in our
agricultural history. . . . The faint rumblings of peasant
class-consciousness, already audible in some parts of India,
challenge the present agricultural regime ” (p. 4).

He reaches the conclusion:

“ There is a growing recognition by men of varied political
and economic predilections that changes in the Indian land
system are imperative. The opinion has now spread to all
classes of society. Under the pressure of an enormous
population upon the land the holdings have come to be so
small and fragmentary that they can neither utilise the
full labour of a family nor can support it even under the
existing low standard of subsistence. At the same time the
landlord has become a rent-receiver rather than a wealth-
producer, having ceased to play his old and honourable
part in the agricultural combination. To-day he neither
supplies agricultural capital nor controls farming operations.
Below him has developed a class of intermediaries who have

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

182

profited from the complexities of the present land system
and make the difficult position of the actual cultivator still
more precarious. This is no criticism, but a summary of
the facts. The old system has broken down, and it is im¬
perative that a new system be created in its stead which is
adapted to the present conditions and requirements of
agricultural and social life ” (pp. 361-2).

This general conclusion is borne in upon all observers of
the present agricultural situation in India. But the question
of what changes are to be made, and how they are to be
accomplished, raises at once all the questions of the present
economic and social system in India under imperialist rule.
For it is in the sphere of agrarian relations that are to be
found the foundations of the existing social order maintained
by imperialism and throttling the life of the people. Herein
equally are arising the most powerful driving forces to change,
which are accumulating to end the existing social order and
open the way to a new system.

The agrarian problem in India cannot be considered in
isolation from the general economy of the country under
imperialism and from the existing structure of class relations
maintained under imperialist rule.

When the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India was
appointed in 1926, and subsequently reported in 1928 in a
bulky Report of close on 800 pages, together with sixteen
additional volumes of Evidence, it was instructed by its
terms of reference “ to make recommendations for the im¬
provement of agriculture and to promote the welfare and
prosperity of the rural population But at the same time
it was warned by the same terms of reference that

“ it will not be within the scope of the Commission’s duties
to make recommendations regarding the existing systems
of land ownership and tenancy or of assessment of land
revenue and irrigation charges

This is indeed Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
It is impossible to deal with the problem of agriculture in
India without dealing with the problem of the land system.

The elementary basic issues underlying the present agrarian
crisis are :

THE CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE 183

(1) the over-pressure of the population on agriculture,
through the blocking of other economic channels ;

(2) the effects of the land monopoly and of the burdens
on the peasantry ;

(3) the low technique and obstacles to the development
of technique ;

(4) the stagnation and deterioration of agriculture under
British rule ;

(5) the increasing impoverishment of the peasantry,
sub-division and fragmentation of holdings, and dis¬
possession of wide sections ;

(6) the consequent increasing differentiation of classes,
leading to the reduction of a growing proportion of the
peasantry, from one third to one half, to the position of a
landless proletariat.

Only on the basis of a survey of these factors can the question
of a solution be considered.

1. The Over-pressure on Agriculture

India, as we are frequently reminded, especially by those who
seem to see hopefully in this fact a supposed obstacle to rapid
democratic or social development, is a “ village Continent
The contrast between the dependence of the overwhelming
majority of the population in India on agriculture and the
highly industrialised communities of Western Europe is
commonly presented as a kind of natural phenomenon,
illustrating the backward character of Indian society and
the consequent necessity of extreme caution in proposing
changes.

Typical is the statement in the classic Montagu -Chelmsford
Report of 1918 in its opening section on“ Conditions in India” :

“ Agriculture is the one great occupation of the people.
In normal times a highly industrialised country like Eng¬
land gives 58 persons out of every 100 to industry, and only
8 to agriculture. But India gives out of every hundred 71
to agriculture or pasture. ... In the whole of India the
soil supports 226 out of 315 millions, and 208 millions of
them get their living directly by, or depend directly upon,
the cultivation of their own or others’ fields.”

Similarly the Simon Commission Report of 1930, which
was produced for mass circulation in England, quotes the

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

164

above statement in its opening section on “ The Predominance
of Agriculture ”, and regales itself with the hopeful conclusion
that change must in consequence come “ very slowly indeed ” :

“ Any quickening of general political judgement, any
widening of rural horizons beyond the traditional and
engrossing interest of weather and water and crops and
cattle, with the round of festivals and fairs and family
ceremonies, and the dread of famine or flood— any such
change from these immemorial preoccupations of the average
Indian villager is bound to come very slowly indeed.”

The facts here given of the heavy dependence of the Indian
population on agriculture, and of the contrast with industria¬
lised countries, are correct. But the presentation of these
facts without consideration of the driving forces in the colonial
system of imperialism which lie behind this situation leads to
a profoundly false and misleading picture. The conclusion
is also completely false ; since it is precisely the sharpening of
the agrarian crisis which is the strongest force driving to rapid
change in India.

What is invariably omitted from this vulgar imperialist
presentation of the picture is the fact that this extreme,
exaggerated, disproportionate and wasteful dependence on
agriculture as the sole occupation for three-fourths of the
people, is not an inherited characteristic of the old, primitive
Indian society surviving into the modern period, but is, on
the contrary, in its present scale a modern phenomenon and the
direct consequence of imperialist rule. The disproportionate
dependence on agriculture has progressively increased under
British rule. This is the expression of the destruction of the old
balance of industry and agriculture and the relegation of India
to the role of an agricultural appendage of imperialism.

The real picture is revealed in the official census returns
of the past half-century. The picture would be even more
overwhelming if returns of the previous period were available.
It was during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth cen¬
tury that the main ravages of Indian industry took place,
destroying formerly populous industrial centres, driving the
population into the villages, and destroying equally the
livelihood of millions of artisans in the villages. No
statistical record of this period is available ; but the

THE CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE 185

census records of recent decades show that this process has
even continued and gone farther in our time.

The first census was taken in 1881. It was, however,
extremely incomplete, and provides no basis for comparison.
Of 1 1 5 million male workers classified under occupational
heads, 51 millions were returned as agriculturists. The
proportion, below half, is certainly too low.

From 1891 to 1921 a closer approach to comparable
returns is available. These show the following picture :

PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION DEPENDENT ON
AGRICULTURE

1891

1901

6 1 - 1
66-5

1911

1921

72- 2

73- 0

In 1931 the basis of classification was changed in such a
way as to bring down the percentage returned as dependent
on agriculture to 65-6. The change, however, was only on
paper, not in the situation. “ The apparent decline in the
numbers dependent upon agricultural and pastoral pursuits
between 1921 and 1931 is illusory ... to be accounted for
by a change in classification, not of occupation. . . . The
percentage of the population engaged in agricultural and
pastoral pursuits hardly changed between 1921 and 1931 ”
(Anstey, “ Economic Development of India ”, p. 61). It
may be noted that the Indian Central Banking Enquiry
Committee reported in 1931 (p. 39) :

“ The proportion of the population of India living on
agriculture is very large and it has been steadily on the
increase. The proportion was 61 per cent, in the year 1891.
It rose to 66 percent, in 1901 and to 73 per cent, in 1921. The
census figures for 193 1 are not available to us, but it may fairly
be presumed that the figure has risen still higher in 1931.”

Even on the revised basis of classification the 1931 figure of 66-6
per cent, shows an advance on the 1891 figure of 6i-i per cent.

The causes of this increasing dependence on agriculture
through the workings of British capitalist policy have been
already explained in Chapter VI, 3. These causes were
clearly recognised by the Census Commissioner for 19 11
when he wrote :

l86 THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

“ The extensive importation of cheap European piece-
goods and utensils, and the establishment in India itself of
numerous factories of the Western type, ■'have more or less

(destroyed many village industries. The high prices of
agricultural produce have also led many village artisans
to abandon their hereditary craft in favour of agricul¬
ture. . . . The extent to which this disintegration of the
old village organisation is proceeding varies considerably
in different parts. The change is most noticeable in the
more advanced provinces.”

(Census of India Report, 1911, Vol. I, p. 408.)

Since 1911 this decline of industry, and consequent still
further one-sided dependence on agriculture, has reached an
even more extreme stage. Between 19 11 and 1931 the
absolute number of those engaged in industry declined by
over 2 millions, while the population increased by 38 millions.

PERCENTAGE OF THE POPULATION DEPENDENT
ON INDUSTRY

19” . 5-5

1921 . 4‘9

1931 . 4-3

While the population during these two decades increased
by 12 per cent., the number of those employed in industry
decreased by 12 per cent., and the percentage of industrial
workers to the total population decreased by more than
one-fifth. This reflects the still continuing havoc of “ de¬
industrialisation ” — that is, the destruction of the old hand
industry, without compensating advance of modern industry,
with consequent continuous increase of the overcrowding
of agriculture.

At the same time the proportion of non-food crops has
increased in relation to food crops. Between 1892-93 and
1919-20 the area under food crops increased from 187 million
acres to 2 1 o million, or by 7 per cent. ; the area under non-food
crops increased from 30 million acres to 43 million, or by 43 per
cent. (Wadia and Joshi, “ Wealth of India ”). This process
has gone still farther forward in the recent period. Between
the average for the five years 1910-11 to 1914- 15 and

THE CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE 187

1934-35 the area under food crops has increased 12-4 per
cent. ; the area under non-food crops has increased 54 per
cent, (see the table in R. Mukerjee “ Food Planning for Four
Hundred Millions ”, p. 16). The export of raw cotton has
increased from 178,000 tons in 1900-1 to 615,000 tons in
1 934-35, or an increase of 245 per cent.; of tea in the same
period from 190 million pounds to 324 million; of oil-seeds
from 549,000 tons to 875,000 tons.

Thus the heavier and heavier overcrowding of agriculture,
with the increasing emphasis on non-food crops for export
(alongside starvation of the Indian masses), is the direct
consequence of British capitalist policy, which has required
India as a market and source of raw materials.

But this overcrowding of agriculture, alongside the social
conditions of exploitation of the peasantry, is at the root of
Indian poverty. The continually intensified over-pressure
on primitive small agriculture, which is the direct consequence
of British capitalist policy in India, is the basic con¬
dition of the poverty of the Indian masses. This was
recognised already by the Famine Commission of 1880, when
it reported, in the extract previously quoted :

“At the root of much of the poverty of the people of
India and of the risks to which they are exposed in seasons
of scarcity lies the unfortunate circumstance that agricul¬
ture forms almost the sole occupation of the masses of the
people.”

A century ago Sir Charles Trevelyan reported to the House
of Commons Select Committee in 1 840 :

“ We have swept away their manufactures ; they have
nothing to depend on but the produce of their land.”

A century later the Royal Commission on Agriculture
repeated the same melancholy tale in 1928 (Report, p. 433) :

“ The overcrowding of the people on the land, the lack
of alternative means of securing a living, the difficulty of
finding any avenue of escape and the early age with which
a man is burdened with dependants, combine to force the
cultivator to grow food wherever he can and on whatever
terms he can.”

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

1 88

2. Consequences of the Over-pressure on Agriculture

The overcrowding of agriculture means that a continuously
heavier demand is made on the existing backward agriculture
in India to supply a livelihood for an increasingly heavy
proportion of a growing population.

On the other hand, the crippling limits of agricultural
development under the existing system, owing to the effects
of the land monopoly and the paralysing burdens of exploita¬
tion placed on the peasantry, make the existing agriculture
increasingly incapable of fulfilling this demand.

This is the vicious circle which holds Indian agriculture
in its grip and underlies the growing crisis. Its outcome is
reflected in stagnation of agricultural development, signs even
of deterioration of the existing level of production owing to the
excessive burdens placed upon it, and catastrophic worsening
of the conditions of the cultivators.

The increasing over-pressure on agriculture means that the
proportion of the available cultivated land to each cultivator
is continuously diminishing.

In 1 9 1 1 Sir Thomas Holderness wrote :

“ The total population of India, including that of the
protected native States, is 315 millions. Three-fourths of
this vast population is supported by agriculture. The area
under cultivation is not accurately known, as the returns
from the native States are incomplete. But we shall not
be far wrong if we assume that there is less than one acre
and a quarter per head for that portion of the population
which is directly supported by agriculture. . . .

“ Not only does the land of India provide food for this
great population, but a very considerable portion of it is
set apart for growing produce which is exported. ... In
fact it pays its bill for imports and discharges its other
international debts mainly by the sale of agricultural pro¬
duce. Subtracting the land thus utilised for supplying foreign
markets from the total area under cultivation we shall find
that what is left over does not represent more than § acre per
head of the total Indian population. India therefore feeds
and to some extent clothes its population from what § acre

THE CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE 189

per head can produce. There is probably no country in
the world where the land is required to do so much.”

(Sir Thomas Holderness, “ Peoples and Problems of
India ”, 1911, p. 139.)

In 1917 the Bombay Director of Agriculture, Dr. Harold H.
Mann, published the results of an enquiry in a typical Poona
village. He found that the average holding in 1771 was 40
acres. In 1818 it was 17! acres. In 1820-40 it had fallen to
14 acres, by 1 914-15 it was 7 acres. He found that 81 per
cent, of the holdings “ could not under the most favourable
circumstances maintain their owners ”. And he drew the
conclusion :

“ It is evident from this that in the last sixty or seventy
years the character of the landholdings has changed. In
the pre-British days and in the early days of British rule
the holdings were usually of a fair size, most frequently
more than 9 or 10 acres, while individual holdings of less
than 2 acres were hardly known. Now the number of
holdings is more than doubled, and 81 per cent, of these
holdings are under 10 acres in size, while no less than
60 per cent, are less than five acres.”

(Dr. H. H. Mann, “ Land and Labour in a Deccan
Village ”, Vol. I, 1917, p. 46.)

Similar results have been obtained for other provinces. “ Mr.
Keatinge has expressed the opinion that ‘ the agricultural hold¬
ings of the Bombay Presidency have to a large extent been
reduced to a condition in which their effective cultivation is
impossible’, and Dr. Slater found that similar conditions pre¬
vailed in parts of Madras. In other provinces conditions are
much the same” (Agricultural Commission Report, p. 132).

The 1921 Census recorded the number of cultivated acres
per cultivator as follows :

Bombay .

12-2

Madras

■ 4' 9

Punjab

9-2

Bengal .

• 3'1

Central Provinces and

Bihar and Orissa .

• 31

and Berar

8-5

Assam

. 30

Burma

5-6

United Provinces .

• 2-5

These are average figures in which the extreme shortage of
the majority is partially concealed by the larger holdings of
the minority.

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

19O

The results of a “ Social and Economic Survey of a Konkan
Village ” (published by the Provincial Co-operative Institute,
Bombay, Rural Economics Series, No. 3) revealed that of a
cultivable area in the village of 1 92 acres, 24 non-agriculturists
owned 113 acres, or an average of 4-71 acres, while 28 agri¬
culturists owned 78 acres, or an average of 2-85 acres.

A survey of “ Economic Life in a Malabar Village ”
(published by the University of Madras Economic Series
No. 2) found that 34 per cent, of the holdings in the village
investigated were under 1 acre.

The Agricultural Commission Report recorded, with regard
to cultivators without permanent rights — that is, the majority
of cultivators (p. 133) :

“ The Punjab figures, which are the only ones available
for a province, indicate that 22-5 per cent, of the cultivators
cultivate one acre or less; a further 15-4 per cent, cultivate
between one and two and a half acres; 17-9 per cent,
between two and a half and five acres, and 20-5 per cent,
between five and ten acres. Except for Bombay, which
would probably show a very similar result, and Burma
which would give higher averages, all other provinces have
much smaller average areas per cultivator.”

Thus even in the relatively more “prosperous” Punjab (which
has been less long under British rule) over one-third cultivate
less than 2 J acres, and over one-half less than 5 acres.

In Bengal the Census Report for 1921 recorded that the
cultivated area worked out at 2-2 acres per working cultivator.
“ It is in such figures as these ”, wrote the Bengal Census
Report for 1921, “ that the explanation of the poverty of the
cultivator lies.”

These are facts whose significance cannot be escaped. They
reveal a desperate, chronic and growing land hunger. They
point only in one direction, as similar facts in the agrarian
history of Russia pointed.

3. Stagnation and Deterioration of Agriculture

Does this chronic and growing land-hunger mean that we
are here faced with an inevitable nature-imposed problem
of absolute land shortage in relation to population?

THE CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE igi

On the contrary. Despite the widespread current concep¬
tions to this effect, examination of the facts will show that this
is not the case (see Chapter III, 3, for the evidence).

The problem is not one of absolute land shortage. It
arises, first, from the failure to use the existing cultivable
area, owing to restrictions and neglect of development ; and,
second, from the extremely low level of production in the
cultivated area, owing to the paralysing burdens of the
existing social system and barriers to technical improvement
and large-scale organisation.

It has been estimated that, even on the existing basis of
small-scale technique, the available land area for cultivation
in India, given necessary measures of land reclamation and
irrigation, could maintain a population of 447 millions, or
70 millions in excess of the existing population (R. Mukerjee,
“ Food Planning for Four Hundred Millions ”, p. 26).

The Indian economist, R. K. Das, has estimated that 70 per
cent, of the available area for cultivation is wasted, and only
30 per cent, is used for productive purposes :

“ The net area actually sown with crops amounts to
228 million acres or 53 per cent, of the total arable land.
But if the areas sown more than once are taken as separate
areas for each crop, the total gross area sown would amount
to 262 million acres. Thanks to the climatic conditions,
a considerable proportion of the arable land is adaptable
to more than two crops a year; but on the other hand, a
part of this area is not cultivable more than once, and some
may not be available for cultivation even for once for some
time to come. It may therefore be assumed that on the
average all the arable land is fit for two crops a year. The
potential area of arable land would thus amount to about
864 million acres, of which only 262 million acres or about
30 per cent, are utilised for productive purposes, and 602
million acres or 70 per cent, are wasted.”

(R. K. Das, “ The Industrial Efficiency of India ”,
1930, p- 13O

In point of fact, even the existing cultivated area has, in
the past quarter of a century until the effects of the present
depression brought a check, increased more rapidly than
population, as the following table indicates :

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

192

INDEX NUMBERS OF POPULATION AND CULTIVATED

AREA

Population.

Total

Cropped

Area.

Area under
Food
Grains.

Pre-war average (1910-11

to 1914-15) .

IOO

100

IOO

>930-31 ....

107

n8-6

113-9

>934-35 ....

120

1 17*2

1124

(R. Mukerjee, “ Food Planning for Four Hundred Millions ”, pp.
16-17.)

Thus between 1910-14 and 1930-31 the population increased 7
per cent., but the cultivated area increased 18-6 per cent. Only
in the latest years, since the depression, has there appeared the
ominous sign of an absolute diminution in the cultivated area,
with a still heavier diminution of the area under food-grains.

More important, however, is the very large proportion of
the cultivable land area which is at present not cultivated.
The current official statistics show the following picture :

AGRICULTURAL AREA OF BRITISH INDIA, 1935-36
(millions of acres)

Millions of Acres.

Net area by professional survey . . 667-4

Area under forest ..... 89-5

Not available for cultivation . . . 145-0

Cultivable waste other than fallow . 153-6

Fallow land ..... 51-0
Net area sown with crops . . . 227-9

(Statistical Abstract for British India, 1936.)

Thus of a cultivable area of 432 million acres, only 53 per cent,
is sown with crops, n-8 is fallow, and no less than 35-5 per
cent, is cultivable land left waste. It is further worth noting
that, in respect of the over one-fifth of the total land area
officially returned as “ not available for cultivation ”, the
Agricultural Commission Report was compelled to admit
(p. 605) that “ it is difficult to believe that the whole of the
vast area now classed as ‘ not available for cultivation ’
amounting, as it does, to 150 million acres or twenty-two and a
half per cent, of the total area of British India is either not
available or not suitable for cultivation ”. There is therefore

THE CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE 1 93

reason to believe that the proportion of cultivable land which
is not cultivated is higher than the 35-5 per cent, officially
returned, and may be nearer two-fifths.

What is the character of this gigantic area of “ cultivable
waste other than fallow ”, and why is it not brought into
cultivation? It is necessary to recognise that the proportion
of it varies in different provinces, and that 60 million acres,
or two-fifths of it, lies in Burma, which is now, since 1937,
separated from India. Even so, in the most populous and
developed provinces, such as Bengal, Bombay, Madras or the
United Provinces, the proportion of the arable area returned
as “ cultivable waste other than fallow ” is as high as 18 per
cent, in Bengal, 13-6 per cent, in Bombay, 23 per cent, in
Madras and 21-5 per cent, in the United Provinces.

The answer was provided already in 1879 by the Report
of Sir James Caird (on the Famine Commission) presented to
the Secretary of State for India:

“ The available good land in India is nearly all occupied.
There are extensive areas of good waste land covered with
jungle in various parts of the country, which might be
reclaimed and rendered suitable for cultivation; but for
that object capital must be employed, and the people have
little to spare.”

(Report of Sir James Caird to the Secretary of State for
India, October 31, 1879.)

It is not that this land could not be brought into cultivation.
But the extreme poverty of the cultivators, from whom every
ounce of surplus and more is extracted, bringing the majority
below subsistence level, leaves them completely without
resources to accomplish this task. This task can only be
accomplished by collective organisation with governmental
aid, utilising the surplus resources of the community for this
urgently necessary extension of production. But this responsi¬
bility has never been recognised by the Government; and it
is here that is expressed the signal failure of the existing
governmental and social system, which in its earlier period
even let fall into complete neglect the public-works and
irrigation system maintained by previous governments before
British rule, and by its extreme exactions has even driven land
out of cultivation, while in the more recent period the begin-

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

l94

nings of land reclamation and irrigation works have been
fractional in relation to the possibilities and the needs.

The original neglect is notorious, and was noted long ago
by Marx in a classic statement :

“ There have been in Asia, generally from immemorial
times, but three departments of Government: that of
Finance, or the plunder of the interior ; that of War, or
the plunder of the exterior ; and finally, the department of
Public Works. . . . The British in East India accepted
from their predecessors the departments of finance and of
war, but they have neglected entirely that of public works.
Hence the deterioration of an agriculture which is not
capable of being conducted on the British principle of free
competition, of laisser-faire and laisser-aller.”

(Marx, “ The British Rule in India ”, New York Daily
Tribune, June 25, 1853.)

“ The roads and tanks and canals ”, noted an observer in
1838 (G. Thompson, “ India and the Colonies ”, 1838),
“ which Hindu or Mussulman Governments constructed for
the service of the nations and the good of the country have
been suffered to fall into dilapidation ; and now the want of
the means of irrigation causes famines.”

The verdict of Sir Arthur Cotton, the pioneer of modern
irrigation work in India, 1854, in his “ Public Works in
India ”, was even more overwhelming than that of Marx :

“ Public works have been almost entirely neglected
throughout India. . . . The motto hitherto has been:

‘ Do nothing, have nothing done, let nobody do anything.
Bear any loss, let the people die of famine, let hundreds of
lakhs be lost in revenue for want of water, or roads, rather
than do anything.’ ”

(Lt.-Col. Cotton,'1 Public Works in India”, 1854, p.272.)
Montgomery Martin, in his standard work “ The Indian
Empire ”, in 1858, noted that the old East India Company
“ omitted not only to initiate improvements, but even to keep
in repair the old works upon which the revenue depended
This neglect, indeed, went considerably farther than the
contemporary British laisser-faire inside Britain ; for, as John
Bright remarked in the House of Commons on June 24, 1858,
“ The single city of Manchester, in the supply of its inhabitants

THE CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE 195

with the single article of water, has spent a larger sum of
money than the East India Company has spent in the fourteen
years from 1834 to 1848 in public works of every kind through¬
out the whole of its vast dominions.”

Even by 1900, when the total out of Government revenues
that had been spent on railways, which facilitated British trade
penetration, amounted to £225 million, the total that had
been spent on canals, which were of vital importance for agri¬
culture, was only £25 million, or one-ninth of the amount
spent on railways.

Lest it should be thought that this neglect applies only to
the past, and does not reach into the present period, it is
worth quoting a recent Report of the Bengal Irrigation
Department Committee in 1930:

“In every district the Khals (canals) which carry the
internal boat traffic become from time to time blocked up
with silt. Its Khals and rivers are the roads and highways
of Eastern Bengal, and it is impossible to overestimate the
importance to the economic life of this part of the province
of maintaining these in proper navigable order ” (p. 6).

“ Central Bengal is at present a decadent tract ; it is
highly malarious, the population is steadily decreasing, and
the land is going out of cultivation. It may of course be
the case that deterioration has already proceeded so far that
it cannot now be checked, and that the tract in question is
doomed to revert gradually into swamp and jungle ” (p. 1 1).

“ As regards the revival or maintenance of minor routes
. . . practically nothing has been done, with the result
that, in some parts of the Province at least, channels have
been silted up, navigation has become limited to a few
months in the year, and crops can only be marketed when
the Khals rise high enough in the monsoon to make transport
possible ” (p. 1 1).

(Report of the Irrigation Department Committee of
Bengal, 1930.)

The judgement of Sir William Willcocks, the leading hydraulic
engineer, on the decay of the irrigation system in Bengal, is
no less striking :

“ Sir William Willcocks, the distinguished hydraulic
engineer, whose name is associated with gigantic irrigation

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

196

enterprises in Egypt and Mesopotamia, has recently made
an investigation of conditions in Bengal. He has dis¬
covered that innumerable small destructive rivers of the
delta region, constantly changing their course, were
originally canals which under the English regime were
allowed to escape from their channels and run wild.
Formerly these canals distributed the flood waters of the
Ganges and provided for proper drainage of the land,
undoubtedly accounting for that prosperity of Bengal
which lured the rapacious East India merchants there in
the early days of the eighteenth century. . . . Not only
was nothing done to utilise and improve the original canal
system, but railway embankments were subsequently thrown
up, entirely destroying it. Some areas, cut off from the
supply of loam-bearing Ganges water, have gradually
become sterile and non-productive ; others, improperly
drained, show an advanced degree of water-logging, with
the inevitable accompaniment of malaria. Nor has any
attempt been made to construct proper embankments for
the Ganges in its low course, to prevent the enormous
erosion by which villages and groves and cultivated fields
are swallowed up each year.

“ Sir William Willcocks severely criticises the modern
administrators and officials, who, with every opportunity
to call in expert technical assistance, have hitherto done
nothing to remedy this disastrous situation, growing worse
from decade to decade.”

(G. Emerson, “ Voiceless Millions ”, 1931, pp. 240-41.)
The full statement of the views of Sir William Willcocks may
be found in his “ Lectures on the Ancient System of Irrigation
in Bengal and its Application to Modern Problems ” (Calcutta
University Readership Lectures, University of Calcutta, 1930),
together with the subsequent controversy in the “ Note by
Mr. C. Addams-Williams, C.I.E., late Chief Engineer,
Irrigation Department, Bengal, on the lectures of Sir William
Willcocks, K.C.M.G., on irrigation in Bengal, together with
a reply by Sir William Willcocks ” (Bengal Secretariat Book
Department, 1931).

Thus the neglect and deterioration are by no means only
a question of the past history of the previous century and a
half of British rule, but continues into the present period. In

the terms of an official report in 1930, “ land is going out of
cultivation ” — in the midst of the most desperate land shortage
and overcrowding on the existing cultivated land. In 1789
Lord Cornwallis reported that a large proportion of the
Company’s territory was reverting to “ a jungle inhabited
only by wild beasts ”. In 1930 a Government Committee
reports of Central Bengal that “ it may of course be the case
that deterioration has already proceeded so far that it cannot
now be checked, and that the tract in question is doomed to
revert gradually into swamp and jungle ”.

But the overcrowded cultivators of India have not only to
raise their crops on only 53 per cent, of the cultivable area:
even within this limited cultivated area the social conditions,
the paralysing burdens placed on the cultivators, their extreme
poverty and primitive technique, which they are not left
with the resources possibly to develop, mean that, while
the demands on the land are heavier than in any country,
owing to the disproportion of the whole economy, the level
of production is lower than in any country.

If we compare the yield of rice and wheat in India with that
of China, Japan or the United States, we find the following
instructive contrast:

CROP YIELDS PER ACRE IN QUINTALS

India.

China.

Japan.

U.S.A.

Wheat

9'7

13-5

9-9

16-8

Rice .

16-5

25-6

30-7

(“Problems of the Pacific ”, 1931, p. 70.)

A further comparison is available on the basis of the League
of Nations’ figures :

CROP YIELDS PER ACRE IN POUNDS AVOIRDUPOIS

Rice.

Wheat.

India .....

L357

652

Japan .

2,767

1,508

Egypt .

2.356

i,688

U.S.A. .....

2jl 12

973

Italy .....

4.601

1,241

Germany ....

—

1,740

United Kingdom

—

1,812

(“ Statistical Yearbook of the League of Nations ”, 1932-33.)

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

198

This contrast is still more marked if taken into relation with
the number of workers employed on the land. In India there is
one person employed in cultivation for every 2-6 acres of land,
as against 17-3 acres in the United Kingdom, and 5-4 acres
in Germany. This colossal waste of labour is the reflection of
the overcrowding of agriculture and of the low technique.

This lower yield is not due to natural disadvantages of
lower productivity of the soil.

“ It has been stated that the soil of India is naturally
poor. This is not correct. It has become poor. The great
river valleys must at one time have been among the most
fertile in the world. In Denmark and Germany the greater
part of the land in its original state consisted of barren wastes
of sand growing nothing but gorse and heather.”

(Indian Central Banking Enquiry Committee Report,
Enclosure XIII, p. 700: Memorandum of A. P.
MacDougall, March 19, 1931.)

The same memorandum goes on to note :

“ If the output per acre were raised to that of France, the
wealth of the country would be increased by -{,'669,000,000.
If the output were in terms of English production, it would
be raised by £1,000,000,000 per year. Yet England is by
no means highly cultivated. This does not make any
allowance for part of the land in India producing two crops
per year. In the other countries referred to only one can
be grown. This advantage should equal any loss from
drought. ... In terms of Danish wheat production the
increased wealth production would be £1,500,000,000 per
year. It is not therefore the soil that is responsible for the
poverty of rural India.”

Not only is the existing yield low, but there is evidence of
deterioration of productivity. The MacDougall Memorandum
quoted above refers to the impoverishment of the soil through
“ continuous cropping without manure ” owing to the
“ deplorable waste of manure by its use as fuel ” (a reflection
of the consequences of the stringent forest laws), and notes
that “ in Western countries fertility is maintained by using
straw and the residue of crops as manure ; in India all the
straw is used for cattle fodder ” (a reflection of the restriction
of grazing facilities). The use of cow-dung for fuel is often

, * ^ ,, 1

THE CRISIS OF AGRICULTURE 199

treated as if it were a peculiar and wasteful habit of the Indian
cultivator; on this point the conclusion of the Agricultural
Commission Report is worth noting that, owing to the limita¬
tions on the use of forest fuel or charcoal and the “ excessive ”
rates charged for transport by rail, “ apart from preference,
cow-dung is at present the only certain supply of fuel which
the great majority of cultivators can obtain ” (p. 264). No
solution is offered for this situation, which leads to inevitable
deterioration of the soil.

In Bengal it is reported :

“ The fertility of the agricultural land is deteriorating
steadily on account of the absence of manure. The yield
of the different crops has become less and less.”

(Bengal Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee Re¬
port, 1930, p. 21.)

Statistics in support of this assertion are given :

AVERAGE YIELD IN LBS. PER ACRE IN BENGAL

Thus from every standpoint, if we examine only the present
conditions and tendencies of agricultural production in India
in relation to the total economy without yet coming to the
growing social contradictions, it is evident that we are faced
with a growing crisis of Indian agriculture.

The causes of this growing crisis are to be found, not in
natural conditions, but in the sphere of social relations. The
experience especially of the most recent period has shown the
vanity of well-meant and short-sighted attempts to preach to
the cultivators on their backwardness, while leaving their
exploitation untouched, or of exhortations to them to improve
their technique, while they have neither the resources, nor
the possibilities within the existing conditions of land tenure,
to adopt improved technical methods.

Indeed, within the existing conditions and limitations, the

200

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

skill and resourcefulness of the Indian cultivators have been
testified by experts. In i88g the Government deputed Dr.
J. A. Voelcker, Consulting Chemist to the Royal Agricultural
Society, to conduct an investigation into Indian agricultural
technique and to suggest improvements. In his report,
published two years later, which remains one of the standard
works on Indian agriculture, he wrote :

“ On one point there can be no question, viz. that the
ideas generally entertained in England, and often given
expression to even in India, that Indian agriculture is, as a
whole, primitive and backward, and that little has been
done to try and remedy it, are altogether erroneous. . . .
At his best the Indian Ryot, or cultivator, is quite as good
as, and in some respects the superior of, the average British
farmer; whilst at his worst, it can only be said that this
state is brought about largely by an absence of facilities for
improvement which is probably unequalled in any other
country, and that the Ryot will struggle on patiently and
uncomplainingly in the face of difficulties in a way that
no one else would.

“ Nor need our British farmers be surprised at what I
say, for it must be remembered that the natives of India were
cultivators of wheat centuries before we in England were.
It is not likely, therefore, that their practice should be capable
of much improvement. What does, however, prevent them
from growing larger crops is the limited facilities to which
they have access, such as the supply of water or manure.

“ But, to take the ordinary acts of husbandry, nowhere
would one find better instances of keeping land scrupulously
clean from weeds, of ingenuity in device of water-raising
appliances, of knowledge of soils and their capabilities, as well
as the exact time to sow and to reap, as one would in
Indian agriculture, and this not at its best alone, but at
its ordinary level. It is wonderful, too, how much is known
of rotation, the system of mixed crops and of fallowing.
Certain it is that I, at least, have never seen a more perfect
picture of careful cultivation, combined with hard labour,
perseverance and fertility of resource, than I have seen in
many of the halting-places in my tour.”

(Dr. J. A. Voelcker, “ Report on the Improvement of
Indian Agriculture ”, 1891.)

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

201

The secret of the growing crisis of Indian agriculture does
not lie in any natural disadvantages, nor in any lack of skill
and resourcefulness, within the limitations under which they
have to work, or supposed innate backwardness of the culti¬
vators, who are thwarted from development, but in the
effects of imperialism and the social relations maintained by
it, which compel the overburdening, stagnation and deteriora¬
tion of agriculture, condemn the mass of the cultivators to
lives of increasing harassment and semi-starvation, and are
thus preparing the conditions for a far-reaching revolution
as the only outcome and solution. It is to these social relations
in agriculture that it is now necessary to turn in order to lay
bare the driving forces of the agrarian crisis.

Chapter IX : BURDENS ON THE
PEASANTRY

“ The agrarian system has already collapsed, and the new organisation of
society is already inevitable.” — Jawaharlal Nehru in 1933.

The crisis of agricultural production, shown in the
overcrowding, low levels, stagnation and deterioration of
agriculture under the present regime, is only the outer ex¬
pression of an inner crisis of the social relations in agriculture.
Under the conditions of imperialism a system of intensive
exploitation of the peasantry has developed without parallel
in any other country. Within the protective shell of imperialist
domination and exploitation has grown up a host of subsidiary
parasitism dependent on and integral to the whole system.
The resulting process reveals, not only the increasing burdens
on the peasantry, their poverty and indebtedness, but the
increasing differentiation of classes and the spreading dis¬
possession of the mass of the cultivators from their holdings.
The dispossessed cultivators are reduced to a situation close to
serfdom or brought down into the ranks of the swelling army
of the landless proletariat. This is the process which heralds
the approach of future storm.
g 2

202

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

i. The Land Monopoly

In the traditional land system of India before British rule
the land belonged to the peasantry, and the Government
received a proportion of the produce. “ The soil in India
belonged to the tribe or its subdivision — the village com¬
munity, the clan or the brotherhood settled in the village —
and never was considered as the property of the king ”
(R. Mukerjee, “Land Problems of India”, 1933, p. 16).
“ Either in a feudal or an imperial scheme there never was
any notion of the ownership of the soil vesting in anybody
except the peasantry” {ibid., p. 36).

The “ king’s share ” or proportion payable to the king was
traditionally fixed under the Hindu kings at one-sixth to
one-twelfth of the produce, though this might be raised in
times of war to one-fourth. The Code of Manu laid down :

“ As leech, calf and bee take their food, so must a King
draw from his kingdom moderate taxes. A fifth part of
the increment of cattle and gold is to be taken by the
King, and one-eighth, one-sixth or one-twelfth part of the
crops, though a Khastriya King who in time of war takes
even one-fourth part of the crops is free from blame if he
protects his subjects to the best of his ability.”

The Mogul Emperors, when they established their dominion,
raised this to one- third. The Statute of Akbar laid down:

“ In former times the Monarchs of Hindustan exacted
the sixth of the produce of the land as tribute and tax.
One-third part of the produce of medium cultivated land is
the revenue settled by His Majesty.”

In the period of the break-up of the Mogul Empire, the
collectors, to whom the raising of the revenue was farmed
out, and who were already elevating themselves to the level
of semi-feudal chiefs, and the independent chieftains frequently
increased this level of tribute to even as high as one-half.

When the British established their dominion on the ruins of
the Mogul Empire, they took over the traditional land basis
of revenue; but they transformed its character, and they
thereby transformed the land system of India.

At the time when they took over, the ruling regime was in
decay and disorder; the exactions from the peasantry were

burdens on the peasantry 203

extreme and extortionate ; but the village community system
and its traditional relationship to the land were still in the
main unbroken, and the tribute was still a proportion (nor¬
mally in kind, optionally in cash) of the year’s produce, not a
fixed payment on the basis of land-holding irrespective of the
fluctuations of production.

The extortionate tribute of a period of disorder appeared
as the starting-point and customary level to the new con¬
querors. The evidence of contemporary writers indicates
that the assessments of the new rulers tended initially to show
an increase, or that more efficient collection made the weight
of exaction in practice heavier. Dr. Buchanan noted in his
“ Statistical Survey ”, conducted on behalf of the Company
in the early years of the nineteenth century, and constituting
the first careful official enquiry, the extremely onerous and
even increased character of the new exactions, both in
Southern India, surveyed in 1800 and the following years,
and in Northern India, surveyed in 1807-14. Thus he wrote
with reference to the district of Dinagepore in Bengal :

“ The natives allege that, although they were often
squeezed by the Mogul officers, and on all occasion were
treated with the utmost contempt, they preferred suffering
these evils to the mode that has been adopted of selling
their lands when they fall in arrears, which is a practice
they cannot endure. Besides, bribery went a great way on
most occasions, and they allege that, bribes included, they
did not actually pay one-half of what they do now.”

(Dr. Francis Buchanan, “ Statistical Survey ”, Vol.
IV, vii, quoted in the Fifth Report of the Select
Committee of the House of Commons, 1872.)

Bishop Heber wrote in 1826 :

“ Neither Native nor European agriculturist, I think,
can thrive at the present rate of taxation. Half the gross
produce of the soil is demanded by Government. . . .
In Hindustan (Northern India) I found a general feeling
among the King’s officers, and I myself was led from some
circumstances to agree with them, that the peasantry in
the Company’s Provinces are on the whole worse off, poorer
and more dispirited than the subjects of the Native Princes;
and here in Madras, where the soil is, generally speaking,

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

204

poor, the difference is said to be still more marked. The
fact is, no Native Prince demands the rent which we do.”

(Bishop Heber, “ Memoirs and Correspondence ”,
1830, Vol. II, p. 413.)

The historians, Thompson and Garratt, record :

“ The history of the pre-Mutiny assessments is a series
of unsuccessful efforts to extract an ‘ economic rent ’,
which was frequently identified with the ‘ net produce
The original auctioning of the Bengal revenue farms was an
attempt to get as large a share as possible of the * net
produce ’. The failure of this system led to the Permanent
Settlement. In Madras and Bombay the original assess¬
ments were usually based on four-fifths of the estimated ‘ net
produce This proved far too high. The first attempt to
assess the North West Provinces failed in the same way, and
was abandoned in 1832. . . . There is no doubt that much
suffering was caused, both in Madras and Bombay, by the
heavy assessments imposed during the first quarter of the
nineteenth century. . . . Even in the Punjab, where the
British assessments reduced the former Sikh demands, ‘ it
would seem that cash payments and rigidity of collection
largely set off the advantage to the cultivator ’ (H. Calvert,
‘ Wealth and Welfare of the Punjab ’, p. 122).”

(Thompson and Garratt, “ Rise and Fulfilment of
British Rule in India ”, p. 427.)

Dr. Harold Mann, in his second survey of a Deccan village in
1921, found a striking contrast between the land revenue in
pre-British days and after British rule:

“ A complete change came after the British conquest,
when in 1823 an almost unheard of revenue of Rs. 2,121
was collected and village expenses went down to half what
they had been in 1817.”

(Mann and Kanitkar, “ Land and Labour in a Deccan
Village ”, Vol. II, 1921, p. 38.)

For the thirty years 1844-74 lbe amount of land assessment for
the whole village was Rs. 1,161, or 9 annas 8 pies per acre;
for the thirty years 1874-1904 it was Rs. 1,467, or 11 annas
4 pies per acre ; in 1 g 1 5 a new assessment raised it to Rs. 1,581,

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

205

or 12 annas 2 pies per acre.1 In his first survey of a Deccan
village, in 1917, Dr. Mann found that the total revenue rose
from Rs. 889 in 1829-30 to Rs. 1,115 m 1849-50 and Rs. 1,660
in 1914-15.

In Bengal the land revenue in the last year of the adminis¬
tration of the Mogul’s agents, in 1764-65, totalled £818,000.
In the first year of the East India Company’s taking over the
financial administration, in 1765-66, it was raised to
£1,470,000. When the Permanent Settlement was estab¬
lished for Bengal in 1793, the figure was £3,091,000.

The total land revenue raised by the Company stood at
£4-2 million in 1 800-1, and had risen (mainly by increase of
territories, but also by increased assessments) to £15*3
million in 1857-58, when the Crown took over. Under
the Crown the total rose to £ 1 7-5 million by 1 900-1, and £20
million by 191 1-12. In 1936-37 the figure was £23-9 million.

The later figures of land assessment in modern times show
a smaller proportion to total produce (the normal basis of
calculation being one-half of net produce or rent — Mukerjee,
“ Land Problems of India ”, p. 202) than the earlier figures
of the first period of British rule and of the period immediately
preceding, the extreme violence of which exactions could not
be maintained. But by this time other forms of exploitation
had come to play a correspondingly greater part, outweighing

* Their table of the land revenue assessments, going back to the
seventeenth century, is of interest :

INCREASE OF LAND REVENUE IN AN INDIAN VILLAGE

Tear.

Land Revenue.

Assessed Area.

1698 ....

Rs.

301

Acres.

1,963

1727 ....

020

2,000

1730 ....

1,173

1,632

2,000

2,008

1770

1785 ....

552

1,954

1790 ....

1,954

1803 ....

1,009

818

1,981

1 808 ....

1,954

1817 ....

792

1,954

1823 (after British rule)

2,121

2,089

1844-74 ....

1,161

1,467

2,089

1874-1904

2,271

1915 ....

1,581

2,2 71

206

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

the role of direct government land revenue, through the develop¬
ment of landlordism and enhanced rents, commercial penetra¬
tion, additional taxation on articles of consumption and rising
indebtedness. The simple direct tribute of the earlier period,
buttressed mainly on land revenue, has given place to the
network of forms of exploitation of modern finance-capital,
with its host of subsidiary parasites in Indian economy.

Even so, the level of the assessments for land revenue have
shown a continuous tendency also in the modern period to
be raised at each revision, with corresponding increased
burdens on the peasantry after each revision, leading to
movements of revolt. In Bardoli in 1928 a united movement
of 87,000 peasants, led by the Congress, successfully resisted
an increased assessment and compelled the Government to
admit that the revision was unjust and to scale it down.1
“ In Madras, Bombay and the United Provinces, in particular,
assessments have gone up by leaps and bounds,” writes
R. Mukerjee in his “ Land Problems of India ” (p. 206).
He notes that between 1890-91 and 1918-19 land revenue
rose from 240 million rupees to 330 million rupees, and adds :

“ While the agricultural income during three decades
increased roughly by 30, 60 and 23 per cent., the land
revenue increased by 57, 22-6 and 15-5 per cent, in the
United Provinces, Madras and Bombay respectively.
Such a large increase of land revenue coupled with its
commutation in cash and its collection at harvest time has
worked very unfavourably on the economic position of
cultivators of uneconomic holdings, who form the majority
in these Provinces ” (p. 345).

1 The angry comment of officialdom on the success of the Bardoli tax
strike is significant : the justice of the grievance is not questioned, but the
complaint is made that a “ precedent ” has thereby been set for questioning
the justice of all assessments :

“ The assessment of this tract (Bardoli) was revised in the ordinary
course ; protests against the new revenue-demand were voiced by
politicians ; and eventually a further official enquiry established, to the
satisfaction of the Government of Bombay, the fact that the assessment
was altogether excessive. In this case the agitation was justified by
the result, but its real significance lies in the establishment of a new
precedent. Future re-assessments are likely to become increasingly the
subject of political debate.”

(W. H. Moreland, C.S.I., C.I.E., “ Peasants, Landholders and the
State ”, in “ Modern India ”, 1932, p. 166.)

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

207

2. Transformation of the Land System

Even more important than the actual increase in the burden
of the assessments in the initial period was the revolution in
the land system effected by the British conquest. The first
step in this revolution was in the system of assessments and
the registration of the ownership of land, in which English
economic and legal conceptions were made to replace, or
superimposed on, the entirely different conceptions and in¬
stitutions of the traditional Indian economy. The previous
traditional “ king’s share ” was a proportion of the year’s
produce, fluctuating with the year’s production, and sur¬
rendered as tribute or tax by the peasant joint owners or self-
governing village community to the ruler. This was now
replaced by the system of fixed money payments, assessed
on land, regularly due in cash irrespective of the year’s
production, in good or bad harvests, and whether more or
less of the land was cultivated or not, and in the overwhelming
majority of settlements fixed on individual land-holders,
whether directly cultivators or landlords appointed by the
State. This payment was commonly spoken of by the early
official administrators, and in the early official documents,
as “ rent ”, thus revealing that the peasantry had become in
fact tenants, whether directly of the State or of the State-
appointed landlords, even though at the same time possessing
certain proprietary and traditional rights. The introduction
of the English landlord system (for which there was no
previous equivalent in India, the new class being built up on
the basis of the previous tax-farmers), of individual land-
holding, of mortgage and sale of lands, and of a whole appara¬
tus of English bourgeois legal conceptions alien to Indian
economy and administered by an alien bureaucracy which
combined in itself, legislative, executive and judicial functions,
completed the process. By this transformation the British
conquerors’ State assumed in practice the ultimate possession
of the land, making the peasantry the equivalent of tenants,
who could be ejected for failure of payment, or alienating
the lands to its own nominees as landlords, who held their
titles from the State and could equally be ejected for failure
of payment. The previous self-governing village community
was robbed of its economic functions, as of its administrative

208

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

role; the great part of the common lands were assigned to
individual holders.

In this way the characteristic process of the colonial system was in
fact carried out with ruthless completeness in India — the expropriation
of the Indian people from their land, even though this process was
partially concealed under an ever-more-complicated maze of legal
forms , which after a century and a half has grown into an impenetrable
thicket of intermixed systems, tenures, customs and rights. From
being owners of the soil, the peasants have become tenants, while
simultaneously enjoying the woes of ownership in respect of mortgages
and debts, which have now descended on the majority of their holdings ;
and with the further development of the process, an increasing proportion
have in the past century, and especially in the past half-century, become
landless labourers or the new class of the agricultural proletariat, now
constituting from one-third to one-half of the agricultural population.

It is to the initial stages of this transformation that Marx
makes reference when he stresses the fact that in India the
destruction of the ancient village communities was effected,
not only by the indirect action of bourgeois commercial pene¬
tration and the inroads of machine-manufactured goods, but by
the “direct political and economic power” of the English con¬
querors “ as rulers and landlords ”, and contrasts the much
slower process of dissolution in China “ where it is not backed
up by any direct political power on the part of the English ” :

“ The obstacles presented by the internal solidity and
articulation of pre-capitalistic national modes of produc¬
tion to the corrosive influence of commerce is strikingly
shown in the intercourse of the English with India and
China. The broad' basis of the mode of production is
here formed by the unity of small agriculture and domestic
industry, to which is added in India the form of com¬
munes resting upon common ownership of the land, which,
by the way, was likewise the original form for China. In
India the English exerted simultaneously their direct
political and economic power as rulers and landlords for the
purpose of disrupting these small economic organisations.”

To which he adds the footnote :

“ If any nation’s history, then it is the history of the
English management of India which is a string of un¬
successful and really absurd (and in practice infamous)

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY 20g

experiments in economics. In Bengal they created a
caricature of English landed property on a large scale ;
in south eastern India a caricature of small allotment
property; in the North West they transformed to the
utmost of their ability the Indian commune with common
ownership of the soil into a caricature of itself.”

(Marx, “ Capital ”, Vol. Ill, xx, pp. 392-3.)

3. Creation of Landlordism
The introduction of the English landlord system in a modi¬
fied form was the first type of land settlement attempted by
the Western conquerors. This was the character of the
famous Permanent Land Settlement of Lord Cornwallis in
1793 for Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and later extended to
parts of North Madras. The existing Zemindars, who were
in reality tax-farmers, or officials appointed by the previous
rulers to collect land revenue on commission (the authorised
commission being Q.\ per cent., though in practice exactions
exceeded this), were constituted landlords in perpetuity,
subject to a permanent fixed payment to the Government,
which was calculated at the time at the rate of ten-elevenths
of the existing total payments of the cultivators, the remaining
one-eleventh being left for the share of the landlord.

At the time these terms of settlement were very onerous
for the Zemindars and the cultivators, and very profitable
for the Government. The figure of £3 million in Bengal to
be raised by the Zemindars for the Government represented
a staggering increase on what had been raised under pre¬
ceding rulers. Many of the old traditional Zemindar families
who carried on the old methods of showing some considera¬
tion and relaxation for the peasants in times of difficulty,
broke down under the burden, and were at once ruthlessly
sold out, their estates being put up to auction; there are
many pathetic stories of the ruin of this better type of the
old Zemindars, who regarded themselves as under some
degree of honourable obligation to the peasantry under their
care, and found themselves driven out without mercy by the
new rulers for failing to raise their quota. A new type of
sharks and rapacious business men came forward to take over
the estates, who were ready to stick at nothing to extract
the last anna from the peasantry in order to pay their quota

210 THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

and fill their own pockets. This was the character of the
new “ class of gentleman proprietors ” which, according to
the conceptions of the time, it was the object of the Permanent
Settlement to create. In the words of the Report of the
Collector of Midnapur in 1802:

“ The system of sales and attachments has in the course
of a very few years reduced most of the great Zemindars in
Bengal to distress and beggary, and produced a greater
change in the landed property of Bengal than has, per¬
haps, ever happened in the same space of time in any age
or country by the mere effect of internal regulations.”

Subsequently the system worked the other way, in a direc¬
tion not originally foreseen by the Government. With the
fall in the value of money, and the increase in the amount
rack-rented from the peasantry, the Government’s share in
the spoils, which was permanently fixed at £3 million,
became relatively smaller and smaller ; while the Zemindars’
share became larger and larger. To-day the total rents in
Bengal under the Permanent Settlement are estimated at
about £ 1 2 million, of which one quarter goes to the Govern¬
ment and three-quarters to the Zemindars.1

Since this has become clear, the Permanent Settlement is
to-day universally attacked and condemned, not only by the
peasantry and the whole Indian people, except the Zemindars,
but also by the imperialists; and there is a strong move¬
ment for its revision (an example of the violence of the con¬
temporary imperialist attack on the Permanent Settlement
can be seen in the downright condemnation in the “ Oxford
History of India v, pp. 561-70). The modern apologists of
imperialism attempt to offer the explanation that the whole
Settlement was an innocent mistake, made through simple
ingenuous ignorance of the fact that the Zemindars were
not landlords. So Anstey in the standard “ Economic Devel¬
opment of India ” (p. 98) :

1 The total of rents extracted is increased by illegal exactions. During
the Second Session of the Bengal Legislative Assembly, 1937, when the
Tenancy Act was under discussion, the total rental of Bental was assessed
by three different speakers at 29 crores (17 crores legal and 12 illegal),
30 crores (20 legal and 10 illegal) and 26 crores (20 legal and 6 illegal).
These estimates would represent an aggregate total, including illegal
exactions, of some £20 million.

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY 211

“ At first the complicated Indian system was a closed
book to the servants of the Company. They began the
‘ search for the landlord . It subsequently appeared
that in most cases these ‘ zamindars ’ had not previously
been owners of the land at all. . . . At the time they were
mistaken for ‘ landlords ’ in the English sense.”

This fairy tale is plain nonsense. A consultation of the
documents of the time makes abundantly clear that Lord
Cornwallis and the statesmen concerned were perfectly con¬
scious that they were creating a new class of landlords, and
of their purpose in doing it.

The purpose of the permanent Zemindari settlement was
to create a new class of landlords after the English model
as the social buttress of English rule. It was recognised that,
with the small numbers of English holding down a vast popu¬
lation, it was absolutely necessary to establish a social basis
for their power through the creation of a new class whose
interests, through receiving a subsidiary share in the spoils
(one-eleventh, in the original intention), would be bound up
with the maintenance of English rule. Lord Cornwallis, in
the memorandum in which he defended his policy, made
clear that he was explicitly conscious that he was creating a
new class, and establishing rights which bore no relation to
the previous rights of the Zemindars: he was, he stated,
“ convinced that, failing the claim of right of the Zemindars,
it would be necessary for the public good to grant a right of
property in the soil to them, or to persons of other descrip¬
tions ”. Sir Richard Temple, in his “ Men and Events of
My Time in India ” (p. 30), records that Lord Cornwallis’s
Permanent Settlement was “ a measure which was effected to
naturalise the landed institutions of England among the natives
of Bengal ”. Lord William Bentinck, Governor-General of
India from 1828 to 1835, in an official speech during his
term of office described with exemplary clearness the purpose
of the Permanent Settlement as a bulwark against revolution :

“If security was wanting against extensive popular tumult
or revolution, I should say that the Permanent Settlement,
though a failure in many other respects and in its most
important essentials, has this great advantage at least, of
having created a vast body of rich landed proprietors deeply

212

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

interested in the continuance of the British Dominion and
having complete command over the mass of the people.”

(Lord William Bentinck, speech on November 8, 1829,
reprinted in A. B. Keith, “ Speeches and Documents
on Indian Policy 1750-1921 ”, Vol. I, p. 215.)

This alliance of British rule with landlordism in India, created
largely by its own act, as its main social basis, continues to-day, and
is to-day involving British rule in inextricable contradictions which
are preparing its downfall along with the downfall of landlordism.
While the people of India move forward in the struggle for
their independence, in every province the Landholders’
Federation, Landowners’ Association or the like meets to
proclaim its undying devotion to British rule. As typical
may be taken the Address of the President of the Bengal
Landowners’ Association to the Viceroy in 1925:

“ Your Excellency can rely on the ungrudging support
and sincere assistance of the landlords.”

In 1938 the first All-India Landholders’ Conference was
held, preparatory to the setting up of an inclusive organisa¬
tion ; and the keynote of the Presidential Address, delivered
by the Maharajah of Mymensingh, was to declare that “ if
we are to exist as a class ” then “ it is our duty to strengthen
the hands of the Government ”. In the new Constitution
special provision is made for the representation of Land¬
holders, alike in the Provincial Legislative Assemblies and in
the Federal Assembly.

But the mistake of the Permanent Settlement was not
repeated. The subsequent Zemindari settlements were
made “ temporary ” — that is, subject to periodical revision
to permit of successive raising of the Government’s demand.

In the period after the Permanent Settlement an alterna¬
tive method was attempted in a number of other districts,
beginning in Madras. The conception was put forward
that the Government should make a direct settlement with
the cultivators, not permanent, but temporary or subject to
periodical re-assessment, and thus avoid both the disad¬
vantages of the Permanent Settlement, securing the entire
spoils itself without needing to share them with intermediaries.
This was the Ryotwari system, associated in its institution
with the name of Sir Thomas Munro in Madras, who saw

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

213

in it a closer approach to Indian institutions. This system
was advocated by Sir Thomas Munro (at first in a permanent
form) in opposition to the Zemindari system already in 1807,
and it was put into force by him as a Governor of Madras in
1820 as a general settlement for the greater part of Madras. Its
model was subsequently followed in a number of other pro*'
vinces, and it now covers just over half the area of British India.

The Ryotwari system, although it was advocated as a
closer approach to Indian institutions, in point of fact, by
its making the settlement with individual cultivators, and
by its assessment on the basis of land, not on the proportion
of the actual produce, broke right across Indian institutions
no less than the Zemindari system. Indeed, the Madras
Board of Revenue at the time fought a long and losing battle
against it, and urged instead a collective settlement with the
village communities, known as a Mauzawari settlement.
Their Memorandum of 1818, in which they criticised the
Ryotwari method, is worth quoting :

“ Ignorant of the true resources of the newly acquired
countries, as of the precise nature of their landed tenures,
we find a small band of foreign conquerors no sooner
obtaining possession of a vast extent of territory, peopled
by various nations, differing from each other in language,
customs and habits, than they attempt what would be
called a Herculean task, or rather a visionary project even
in the most civilised countries of Europe, of which every
statistical information is possessed, and of which the Gov¬
ernment are one with the people, viz., to fix a land-rent,
not on each province, district or country, not on each estate
or farm, but on every separate field within their dominions.

“ In pursuit of this supposed improvement, we find them
unintentionally dissolving the ancient ties, the ancient usages
which united the republic of each Hindu village, and by a
kind of agrarian law newly assessing and parcelling out the
lands which from time immemorial had belonged to the
Village Community collectively . . . professing to limit
their demand to edfch field, but in fact, by establishing such
limit, an unattainable maximum, assessing the Ryot at
discretion, and, like the Musalman Government which pre¬
ceded them, binding the Ryot by force to the plough, com¬
pelling him to till land acknowledged to be over-assessed,

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

214

dragging him back to it if he absconded, deferring their
demand upon him until his crop came to maturity, then
taking from him all that could be obtained, and leaving
him nothing but his bullocks and seed grain, nay, perhaps
obliged to supply him even with these, in order to renew his
melancholy task of cultivating, not for himself, but for them.”
(Minute of the Madras Board of Revenue, January 5, 1818.)

This plea of the officers on the spot for a collective settlement
and for recognition of “ the lands which from time immemorial
had belonged to the Village Community collectively ” was
overborne. The London Court of Directors decided for the
Ryotwari system, or, in the terms of a document of the time,
to “ confer the boon of private property ” upon the peasantry ;
and armed with their instructions, Sir Thomas Munro returned
from London to impose this system as a general settlement.

To-day the forms of land tenure in British India are, in
consequence, traditionally classified under these three main
groupings, all deriving from the British Government, and
reflecting in fact its claim to be paramount landlord.

First, the Permanent Zemindari settlements, in Bengal, Bihar
and parts of North Madras, cover 19 per cent, of the area.

Second, the T emporary Zemindari settlements, extending over
most of the United Provinces, the Central Provinces, parts of
Bengal and Bombay, and the Punjab (either with individual or
group owners, as in the case of the so-called Joint Village
settlements tried in the Punjab), cover 30 per cent, of the area.

Third, the Ryotwari settlements, prevalent in Bombay, in
most of Madras, in Berar, Sind, Assam and other parts,
cover 51 per cent, of the area.

It should not be supposed from this that landlordism pre¬
vails only in the 49 per cent, of the area of British India
covered by the Zemindari settlements. In practice, through
the process of sub-letting, and through the dispossession of
the original cultivators by moneylenders and others securing
possession of their land, landlordism has spread extensively
and at an increasing pace in the Ryotwari areas ; the original
intention may have been to make the settlements directly
with the actual cultivators, but the relations have by now
greatly changed. It is estimated that “ over 30 per cent, of
the lands are not cultivated by the tenants themselves in
Madras and Bombay ” (Mukeijee, “ Land Problems of

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY 215

India ”, p. 329). In Madras between 1901 and 1921 the
number of non-cultivating landowners increased from 19 to
49 per thousand; the number of cultivating landowners
decreased from 484 to 381 per thousand; the number of
cultivating tenants increased from 151 to 225 per thousand.
The Punjab Census Report for 1921 recorded an increase in
the number of persons living from rent of agricultural lands
from 626,000 in ign to 1,008,000 in 1921. In the United
Provinces between 1891 and 1921 the number of persons re¬
turned as deriving their main income from agricultural rents
increased by 46 per cent. In Central Provinces and Berar in
the same period the rent-receivers increased by 52 per cent.

This extending chain of landlordism in India, increasing most
rapidly in the modern period, is the reflection of the growing dis¬
possession of the peasantry and the invasion of moneyed interests, big
and small, which seek investment in this direction, having failed to
find effective outlets for investment in productive industry. Over
wide areas a fantastic chain of sub-letting has grown up,
even to the fiftieth degree. (“ In some districts the sub-
.infeudation has grown to astonishing proportions, as
many as fifty or more intermediary interests having been
created between the Zemindar at the top and the actual
cultivator at the bottom.” — Simon Report, Vol. I, p. 340.)

In consequence, much of the tenancy legislation, designed
to protect the cultivators, reaches only to inferior landlords,
while the majority of the real cultivators, if not already reduced
to the position of landless labourers, are unprotected tenants,
mercilessly squeezed to maintain a horde of functionless inter¬
mediaries above them in addition to the big parasites and the
final claims of the Government. This process, carrying the
whole system of landlordism to its final absurdity, is one of the
sharpest expressions of the developing agrarian crisis in India.

4. Impoverishment of the Peasantry

The consequent picture of agrarian relations in India is
thus one of sharp and growing differentiation of classes.

The Census of 1931 presents the following picture of the
division of classes in Indian agriculture :

Non-cultivating proprietors taking rent . 4,150,000

Cultivating owners, tenant cultivators . . 65,495,000

Agricultural labourers .... 33,523,000

2l6

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

This classification is of only limited value, since the general
grouping of “ cultivating owners, tenant cultivators ” thrown
no light on the size of holdings, and in consequence make*
no distinction between big peasants, middle peasants and
poor peasants. In particular, it gives no indication of the
size of the majority group of cultivators with uneconomic
holdings, whose conditions approximate to those of the
labourers, and who commonly have to eke out their living
as labourers. In practice the margin between the small
sub-tenant and the labourer is a shadowy one. To get a
truer picture it is therefore necessary to supplement the
general Census returns with the results of regional and local
enquiries, official and unofficial.

Changes in the system of classification also prevent com¬
parison with previous Census returns. The 1921 Census,
by the inclusion of dependants, gave a total for those drawing
their living from agricultural cultivation as 221 millions,
against 103 millions in the 1931 Census. It is therefore
necessary to take the figure of “ actual workers ” returned
in the previous Census, totalling 100 millions, alongside the
103 millions of the 1931 Census, to make even a rough com¬
parison. Even this comparison is vitiated by further changes
in the system of classification, through the removal of all those
whose agricultural occupation is treated as subsidiary to
other occupations, and in particular, through the removal of
7 million women, female relatives of agriculturists assisting
in the work of the farm, to the category of “ domestic service ”,
thus giving an illusory apparent effect of a decline in the
relative proportion of the population engaged in agriculture (as
already explained on p. 185). This latter change, however, only
reinforces the general effect of the conclusions to be drawn.
A comparison on this basis would show the following result :

These figures are in detail not comparable, for the reasons
explained, especially in relation to the second group. But

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

217

there is no doubt of the general tendency here revealed, of
the growth in the number of non-cultivating landlords (the
1911 figure showed 2-8 millions), and the enormous growth
in the number of landless labourers.

More detailed figures can be taken for Madras :

CLASS DIFFERENTIATION IN AGRICULTURE IN MADRAS

(per thousand of the agricultural population)

1901.

i gi /.

1921.

Non-working landowners

Non-working tenants

Working landowners

484

426

381

390

Working tenants . 4

i5‘

207

225

120

Labourers

345

340

317

429

(The figures for 1901 -21, based on the Census Reports, are given in
P. P. Pillai, “ Economic Conditions in India ”, p. 114; the 1931 figures
are taken from the 1931 Census Report for Madras.)

In the three decades from 1901 to 1931 the number of non¬
working rent-receivers has increased two and a half times
(from 20 to 50 per thousand) ; the number of cultivating
owners or tenants has decreased by one-quarter (from 635 to
510 per thousand) ; the number of landless labourers has
increased from one-third to nearly one-half (345 to 429 per
thousand) .

In Bengal we find the following (based on the Census returns) :

1921.

1931-

Change.

Non-cultivating landlords or
rent-receivers

Cultivating owners and tenants
Labourers ....

390,562

9,274,924

1,805,502

633,834
6,079,7' 7
2,7i8,939

+ 61%

- 50%

+ 34%

Again the detail figures are not comparable, owing to the
change in classification, resulting in an illusory apparent
decline of the total agricultural population by 2 millions.
But this proves only the more overwhelmingly the actually
greater reality of the increase in the proportions of non¬
cultivating rent-receivers and of landless labourers.

The startling growth in the numbers of non-cultivating
rent-receivers has been already noted in the previous section,
and is confirmed by all evidence from all parts. This is the
reflection of the extending expropriation of the cultivators.

218 the agrarian problem

The growth, at the other end of the scale, of the landless
agricultural labourers is even more significant. In 1842 Sir
Thomas Munro, as Census Commissioner, reported that
there were no landless peasants in India (an undoubtedly
incorrect picture, but indicating that the numbers were not
considered to require statistical measurement). In 1882 the
Census estimated million “ landless day labourers ” in
agriculture. The 1921 Census returned a total of 21 millions,
or one-fifth of those engaged in agriculture. The 1931 Census
returned a total of 33 millions, or one-third of those engaged
in agriculture. Since then it has been estimated (as in the
debates in the Bengal Legislative Assembly on the amend¬
ments to the Tenancy Act in 1938; the Madras figures given
above also indicate the same) that the real present proportion
is nearer one-half.1

With regard to the wages of these agricultural labourers
the following table is instructive :

1842.

1852.

1862.

1872.

1911.

1922.

Field labourer without
food (day wage in
annas)

4 to 6

Price of rice (seers per
rupee)

3<J

(R. Mukerjee, “ Land Problems of India ”, p. 222.)

Thus, while the cash wage has increased four to six times in
this period, the price of rice has increased eight times — that
is to say, the real wage has fallen by one-quarter to one-half
during these eighty years of “ progress ”. In the United
Province the Report of the Quinquennial Wage Survey in
1934 recorded the average wage as 3 annas or 3 d. a day. In
326 villages it was annas or 1 \d. a day.

Descending still farther in the scale, if that were possible,
we reach the dark realms of serfdom, forced labour and debt
slavery, of landless labourers without wages, existing in all
parts of India, about which the statistical returns are silent.

1 An enquiry into the conditions of the village of Khirhar in North Bihar
in 1939 found that “ the most numerous class is that of the landless
labourers, consisting of 760 families, numbering 5,023 people, forming
72 per cent, of the population of the village ”. (S. Sarkar, “ Economic

Conditions of a Village in North Bihar ”, Indian Journal of Economics, July,
1 939-)

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY 2IQ

“ On the lowest rung of the economic ladder in India
stand those permanent agricultural labourers who rarely
receive cash and whose conditions vary from absolute to
mitigated slavery. Such is the custom of the country in
many parts of India that the zemindar, malguzar or ordinary
cultivator nearly always contrives to get his servant into
his debt, thus obtaining a hold over him which extends even
to his posterity.

“ In the Bombay Presidency there are the Dublas and
Kolis, who to a greater or less extent are bond slaves. Most
of their families have been serving for several generations
practically as slaves to their masters’ households. . . .

“ In the south-west of Madras there are the Izhavas,
Cherumas, Puleyas and Holiyas, all virtually slaves. On
the East Coast the Brahman’s hold on the land is strongest
and a large proportion of the agricultural labourers are
pariahs, who are often Padials. The Padial is a species
of serf, who has fallen into hereditary dependence on a
landowner through debt. . . . Such a loan is never repaid,
but descends from one generation to another, and the
Padials themselves are transferred with the creditor’s land
when he sells it or dies. . . .

“ The lowest depth of serfdom is touched by the Kamias
of Bihar, bond servants, who, in return for a loan received,
bind themselves to perform whatever menial services are
required of them by their masters in lieu of the interest due
on the loan.”

(R. Mukerjee, “ Land Problems of India ”, pp. 225-9.)

In many parts these agricultural serfs and debt slaves are
representatives of the aboriginal races. But the position of
the former free peasant, who has lost his land and become
virtually enslaved to his creditor through debt, or who has
been reduced to the bondage of share-cropping, is not far
removed from legal serfdom.

Akin to these in many respects is the condition of the planta¬
tion slaves, or over 1 million labourers on the great tea,
coffee and rubber plantations, owned as to 90 per cent, by
European companies, which pay high dividends. The labour
for these is recruited from all over India ; the workers with
their families live on the estates under the complete control
of the companies, without the most elementary civil rights ;

220

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

the labour of men, women and children is exploited at low
rates ; and, although the penal contracts have been formally
abolished in recent years and various regulations introduced
since the Whitley Report in 1930, the workers remain effec¬
tively tied to their masters for prolonged periods, and even in
practice in many cases for life.

The pauperisation of the peasantry is shown in the growth
of the proportion of landless labourers to one-third or even
one-half of the agricultural population. But in fact the
situation of the majority of small cultivators on uneconomic
holdings, of sub-let tenants and unprotected tenants, is not
far removed from that of the agricultural labourers, and the
line of distinction between the two is an extremely shadowy
one. Thus the Report of the Madras Banking Enquiry
Committee in 1930 noted :

“ We find it difficult to draw a clear line between culti¬
vation by farm servants and sub-letting. Sub-letting is
rarely on a money rental. It is commonly on a sharing
system, the landlord getting 40 to 60 or even 80 per cent, of
the yield and the tenant the rest. The tenant commonly
goes on from year to year eking out a precarious living on
such terms, borrowing from the landlord, being supplied
by him with seed, cattle and implements. The farm ser¬
vant, on the other hand, uses the landlord’s seed, catde and
implements, gets advances in cash from time to time for
petty requirements, and is paid from the harvest either a
lump sum of grain or proportion of the yield. The farm
servant may in some cases be paid a little cash as well as a
fixed amount of grain. The tenant may cultivate with his
own stock and implements, but there is in practice no very
clear line between the two; and when the landlord is an
absentee, it is not always obvious whether the actual
cultivator is a farm labourer or a sub-tenant.”

In 1927 N. M. Joshi, before the All-India Trade Union Con¬
gress, estimated 25 millions to be the number of agricultural
wage-earners, and 50 millions more to be partly working as wage-
earners on the land. Thus the position of the overwhelming
majority of Indian cultivators already approximates to that of a
rural proletariat rather than of small peasant farmers.

In 1930 the Simon Report, that monument of imperialist

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

221

complacency, declared (echoing the Agricultural Commission
Report of two years earlier) :

“ The typical agriculturist is still the man who possesses
a pair of bullocks and cultivates a few acres, with the
assistance of his family and of occasional hired labour.”

(Simon Report, Vol. I, p. 18.)

How fantastic is this picture in relation to the present realities
can already be seen from the facts that have been given. In
the evidence before the Agricultural Commission in 1927 an
analysis was given of a district of one million acres in Bombay,
which was declared to be “ infinitely better off than many
others The changes in the proportions of holdings in only
five years between 1917 and 1922 were as follows (Vol. II,
Part I of Evidence, p. 292) :

Acreage of Holdings.

Number of Holdings in —

Decrease

Increase
{per cent.).

'9*7-

igstx.

Under 5

6,272

+ 2-6

5‘° »5 •

17.909

+ 6-8

15 to 25 .

11,908

I2,Ol8

+ 09

25 to 100 .

«5.532

15,020

- 3'3

100 to 500 .

•.234

1,117

- 9‘5

Over 500

•9

- 50

The witness, a Government official, added in comment :

“ These figures referring only to a period of five years
appear to me to show a very marked increase in the number
of agriculturists cultivating holdings up to 15 acres, which
except in a very few soils is not an area which can economi¬
cally employ a pair of bullocks. . . . There is also a drop
in the holdings of 25-100 acres, which means a decrease in
the comparatively substantial agriculturist class who can
with luck lay by a little capital.”

Thus by 1922 one-half of the peasant holders (leaving out of
account the army of landless labourers) no longer occupied a
holding which could economically employ a pair of bullocks ;
and this proportion was rapidly increasing.

Any survey of the real situation of the peasantry thus turns
on the crucial question of the size of holdings, with regard to

222

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

which information has been given in the second section of this
chapter. The distinction between the “ ordinary culti¬
vators ”, in the old Census phraseology, whether owners or
tenants, and the landless labourers, is far less indicative of
the real situation than the distinction between the over¬
whelming majority, constituted by the landless labourers and
the cultivators with uneconomic holdings, and the small minor¬
ity with even economic holdings, let alone the still smaller
minority who could be classed as “ comparatively substantial
agriculturists ” and the non-cultivating rent-receivers.

Here the classic survey of Dr. Harold H. Mann on “ Life
and Labour in a Deccan Village ” helps to throw light on the
situation. In 1914-15 Dr. Mann, who was Director of Agri¬
culture in Bombay, made an exhaustive enquiry into the
conditions of a typical village in the Deccan. This enquiry
was a purely scientific enquiry into actual conditions, culti¬
vation, crops, land-holdings, debts and family income and
expenditure in a typical “ dry ” village ; but it was the first
time that such an enquiry had been fully and exhaustively
made. The results were so startling (in the words of the
author, so “ unexpected ” and “ depressing ”) that it was
declared in criticism — no other criticism was possible in view
of the scientific exactness of the facts — that the conditions of
the village in question could not be accepted as typical. Dr.
Mann thereupon turned his enquiry to another and different
village, and in the ensuing study, published in 1921, reached
precisely the same results, even more heavily emphasised.
Since then, similar surveys in many parts of the country have
confirmed the general correctness of these results.

In the first village he found that 81 per cent, of the holdings
“ could not under the most favourable circumstances main¬
tain their owners ”. The division of the 156 holdings revealed

the following picture :

More than 30 acres .... 2

20-30 acres . . . . . ' . 9

10-20 acres . . . . . .18

5—10 acres . . . . . -34

1-5 acres . . . . . . 71

Less than 1 acre . . . . .22

Following Keatinge’s estimate that “ an economic holding

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

223

of good dry land such as is most in this village in the Western
Deccan, and with an Indian ryot’s standard of life, would be
about 10 to 15 acres ”, he reached the conclusion that “ even
if each holding were held in one block, it is evident that a
large proportion (81 per cent.) are below this size”. This
conclusion is reached on the basis of an estimate of the econo¬
mic minimum for the ryot’s standard of life, which touches
the lowest level of scanty food and clothing, with no allowance
for such a luxury as artificial light. Taking the total of 103
families, he found that those families which were in a “ sound
economic position ” on the basis of their land-holdings
numbered 8 out of the 103; those which could maintain
their position on the basis of their land by the addition of
working outside numbered 28; but those which were in an
“ unsound ” economic position, even on the basis of the
fullest earnings from their holding of land and from working
outside, numbered 67, or 65 per cent. In the case of this
first village, however, there was in the neighbourhood a large
ammunition factory which provided outside employment for
30 per cent, of the population; and to this extent the con¬
ditions were not typical.

In the second village, which was far removed from any
manufacturing or industrial centre, 85 per cent, of the
families were in this “ unsound ” economic position. In
this village, where the minimum economic holding would be
about 20 acres, 77 per cent, of the holdings were below this
level. Of the 147 families, 10 were in the first group of being
able to maintain a “ sound economic position ” on the basis
of their land-holdings ; 1 2 were in the second group of being
able to maintain their position on the combined basis of
their land and working outside; and 125, or 85 per cent.,
were in an “ unsound ” economic position, even on the basis
of the fullest earnings from their land and from working out¬
side. This last group included 664 persons out of the total
population of 732 — that is, 91 per cent, of the population
were in this “ unsound ” economic position.

How do this preponderant majority below the lowest
minimum standard eke out a living? They cannot do it.
Inevitably they fall deeper and deeper into debt; they lose
their land ; they pass into the army of landless labourers.
The investigation revealed the ever-tightening grip of debt on

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

224

the villages. In the first village surveyed the annual debt
charges amounted to 2,515 rupees, against a total net return
of 8,338 rupees. “ These debts now form a crushing load
amounting to nearly 12 per cent, of the capital value of the
village and the actual charges for them amount to 24-5 per
cent, of the total profits from land ” (p. 152). The second
survey revealed a total of charges on debt amounting to
6,755 rupees, against a net return from the land of 15,807
rupees, or more than two-fifths of the return from the land
went to the moneylender.

At the end of his survey Dr. Mann reached the general
conclusion :

“ An average year seems (if our investigations and
calculations give anything like a true picture of the village
life) to leave the village under-fed, more in debt than ever,
and apparently less capable than ever of obtaining with the
present population and the present methods of cultivation
a real economic independence.”

5. The Burden of Debt

As the difficulties of the peasant increase, the burden of
debt descends more and more heavily upon him, and in turn
increases his difficulties. This is the final vicious circle, which
is only broken by the last stage — expropriation. Thus the
growth of indebtedness, and of the accompanying processes of
mortgaging of lands and of sale and transfer of lands to
non-agriculturists, is one of the sharpest measures of the
growth of the agrarian crisis.

“ The vast majority of peasants ”, noted the Simon Report
(Vol. I, p. 16) “ live in debt to the moneylender.”

That the burden of indebtedness has grown concomitantly
with British rule, and has become an urgent and ever more
widespread problem in the most recent period, is universally
admitted. Writing in 191 1, Sir Edward Maclagan observed:

“ It has long been recognised that indebtedness is no
new thing in India. The writings of Munro, Elphinstone
and others make it clear that there was much debt even at
the beginning of our rule. But it is also acknowledged that
the indebtedness has risen considerably during our rule,
and more especially during the last half century. The reports

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY 225

received from time to time and the evidence of annual
sale and mortgage data show clearly there has been a very
considerable increase of debt during the last half century.”

(Sir Edward Maclagan in 191 1, quoted in the Report of
the Central Banking Enquiry Committee, 1 93 1 , p. 55.)

Already in 1880 the Famine Commission reported:

“ One-third of the landholding classes are deeply and in¬
extricably in debt, and at least an equal proportion are in
debt, though not beyond the power of recovering themselves. 1 ’

Since then this burden of debt has steeply increased. In
1928 the Agricultural Commission reported:

“ It is more than probable that the total rural debt has
increased in the present century; whether the proportion
it bears to the growing assets of the people has remained
at the same level, and whether it is a heavier or lighter
burden on the more prosperous cultivator than of old, are
questions to which the evidence we have received does not
provide an answer.”

(Report of the Agricultural Commission, 1928, p. 441.)
This fact of the increase was confirmed by the Central Banking
Enquiry Committee in 1931 :

“ On the question whether the volume of agricultural
indebtedness is increasing or decreasing, there is a general
consensus of opinion that the volume has been increasing
in the course of the last century.”

(Report of the Central Banking Enquiry Committee
I93C P- 55-)

The total volume of rural debt at that time (1931) was esti¬
mated by the Committee at 900 crores of rupees, or £675
million. Since then, following the economic crisis and the
collapse of agricultural prices, a very steep further increase
has taken place, and recent estimates place the total at
double that figure (see page 238).

What lies behind this heavy increase of indebtedness under
British rule, and especially in the modern period? The
lighter type of writers, and conventional apologetic treatment,
still endeavour to ascribe the indebtedness to the “ im¬
providence ” and “ extravagance ” of the peasantry, and to
find the origin of the debts in social habits of spending large

226

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

sums beyond their means on marriages, funerals and similar
conventional social ceremonies, or on litigation. Cold facts
do not bear out this analysis. Already in 1875 the Deccan
Riots Commission reported :

“ Undue importance has been given to the expenditure
on marriage and other festivals. . . . The expenditure
forms an item of some importance in the debit side ot his
(the ryot’s) account, but it rarely appears as the nucleus
of his indebtedness.”

The Bengal Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee found
that, as a result of “ intensive village enquiries ”, the above
charge could not be maintained. For example, in the village
of Karimpur in the Bogra district, where fifty-two families
were indebted, the purposes for which loans were incurred
during one year, 1928-29, were as follows:

For repayment of old debts

Rupees.

389

For capital and permanent improvements,
including purchase of cattle .

1,087

For land revenue and rent

573

For cultivation

435

For social and religious purposes

150

For litigation ....

For other purposes .

•

Total ....

2,7*5

Thus debts incurred for social and religious purposes, or for
litigation, only comprise one-sixteenth of the whole. Only
the second item, covering two-fifths of the whole, could be
regarded as in any sense productive debt, representing the
lack of capital of the peasant. The remainder, comprising
over half, was incurred to meet urgent current needs of land
revenue, rent, repayment of debt and current cultivation.

Similar results were obtained in an enquiry in South-West
Birbhum, Bengal, in 1933-34. Here, out of a total of 426
families in six villages, 234, or 55 per cent., were found to be
in debt, to a total of 53,799 rupees, or an average of 230
rupees (£17 55.) per family. The causes of indebtedness
showed the following proportions :

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

227

Rupees.

Per cent.

For payment of rent .

13.007

24-2

For capital improvement

ia.736

237

For social and religious purposes .

12,021

223

For repayment of old debts .

4.503

8-4

For cultivation expenses

2.423

4'5

For litigation ....

708

For miscellaneous purposes .

8,401

156

(S. Bose, “ A Survey of Rural Indebtedness in South-West Birbhum,
Bengal, in 1933-34 ”> Indian Journal of Statistics, September, 1937.)

The principal item of debt— roughly one-quarter — was in¬
curred for payment of rent; rent and debt together accounted
for one-third; rather than less than one-quarter went for
capital improvement; the proportion for social and religious
purposes was higher than in the other example, but still only
slightly over one-fifth. The main body of debt was incurred
for economic needs, only a minority proportion of this being
productive debt.

The causes of the indebtedness of the Indian peasantry are
thus economic, and are closely linked up with their exploita¬
tion through the burdens of land revenue and rent. “ The
chief cause of indebtedness ”, in the words of the enquiry
quoted above, “ is the general poverty of the cultivating
class.” It was Sir T. Hope, a Bombay revenue officer, who
declared, in the speech in which he introduced the Deccan
Agriculturists’ Relief Bill in 1879, that “ to our revenue
system must in candour be ascribed some share in the in¬
debtedness of the ryot “ There can be no question ”,
wrote the Report of the Commission of 1892 into the work¬
ing of the Deccan Agriculturists’ Relief Act, “ that the
rigidity of the present system is one of the main causes which
lead the ryots of the Deccan into fresh debt.” A system
which establishes fixed revenue assessments in cash, at a
uniform figure for thirty-year periods at a time, irrespective
of harvests or economic changes, may appear convenient to
the revenue collector or to the Government statesmen com¬
puting their budget; but to the countryman, who has to
pay the uniform figure from a wildly fluctuating income, it
spells ruin in bad years, and inevitably drives him into the
hands of the moneylender. Tardy suspensions or remission
in extreme conditions may strive to mitigate, but cannot

228

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

prevent this process. The Commission above quoted collected
evidence from a series of villages in the Poona district on how
the land revenue is paid. The following table, summarising
the answers from the villages, is illuminating :

Village. How the Land Revenue is Paid.

Waiwand Ryots are obliged to borrow to pay revenue.
Pimpalgaon Borrow a little even in good years.

Deulgaon Borrow in some cases.

Kanagaon Crops seldom ripen in time for assessment, so
ryots have to borrow.

Nandgaon If rain bad, borrow on security of standing jowar.

Dhond Borrow on security of standing crops.

Girim Must borrow on account, or, if no credit, sell

standing crops.

Sonwari Have to borrow to pay revenue, if cannot pay
out of savings, or by sale of cattle.

Wadhana Pay first instalment by borrowing on standing
crops. If no crops, mortgage land or sell.
Morgaon Same.

Ambi Same.

Tardoli Pay first instalment by borrowing on standing

crops, or, if no crops, borrow on interest.

Kusigaon Same.

“ I was perfectly satisfied during my visit to Bombay,”
writes Vaughan Nash in “ The Great Famine ”, published
in 1900, who summarises the above table from the Com¬
mission’s Report, “ that the authorities regarded the money¬
lender as their mainstay for the payment of revenue.”

The moneylender and debt are not new phenomena in
Indian society. But the role of the moneylender has taken
on new proportions and a new significance under capitalist
exploitation, and especially in the period of imperialism.
Previously, the peasant could only borrow from the money¬
lender on his personal security, and the trade of the money¬
lender was hazardous and uncertain; his transactions were
in practice subject to the judgement of the village. Under
the old laws the creditor could not seize the land of his
debtor. All this was changed under British rule. The
British legal system, with the right of distraint on the debtor
and the transferability of lands, created a happy hunting-

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

229

ground for the moneylender, and placed behind him all the
power of the police and the law, making him an indispensable
pivot in the whole system of capitalist exploitation. For the
moneylender not only provides the indispensable medium for
the collection of land revenue; he commonly combines in
his person the role of grain merchant with that of usurer ; he
holds the monopolist position for purchasing the crops at
harvest-time; he often advances the seeds and implements;
and the peasants, usually unable to check his accounts of
what they have paid and what is due to them, fall more
and more under his sway; he becomes the despot of the
village. As the lands fall into his hands, the process is carried
farther: the peasants become labourers or share-croppers
completely working for him, paying over to him as combined
rent and interest the greater part of what they produce;
he becomes more and more the small capitalist of Indian
village economy, employing the peasants as his workers.
The anger of the peasants may in the first place turn
against the moneylender as their visible tyrant and the
apparent author of their woes; the sporadic cases of the
murder of moneylenders even by the peaceful and long-
suffering Indian peasants illustrate this process; but they
soon find that behind the moneylender stands the whole
power of the British Raj. The moneylender is the indis¬
pensable lower cog, at the point of production, of the entire
mechanism of finance-capitalist exploitation.

As the ravages of the moneylender extend, attempts are
made with increasing urgency by the Government, in the
interests of exploitation in general, to check him from killing
the goose that lays the golden eggs. Volumes of special legis¬
lation have been passed for restriction of usurious interest and
against the alienation of lands. But the failure of this legisla¬
tion has had to be admitted (see the section of the Agricultural
Commission’s Report on “ Failure of Legislation ”, pp. 436-7,
with reference to the experience of this legislation intended to
check rural indebtedness), and is further testified by the
unchecked and even accelerating growth of indebtedness.

The most detailed investigation of the whole problem of
indebtedness and its growth under British rule is to be found
in M. L. Darling’s “ The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and
Debt”, originally published in 1925, and in his subsequent

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

230

books “ Rusticus Loquitur ” (1930) and “ Wisdom and Waste
in a Punjab Village” (1934). Despite the generally apolo¬
getic outlook of the writer, the facts stand out. In his first
work he showed how since the British conquest indebtedness
spread in the Punjab :

“ The mortgage that was rare in the days of the Sikh
appeared in every village, and by 1878 seven per cent, of
the Province was pledged. . . .

“ By 1880 the unequal fight between the peasant pro¬
prietor and the moneylender had ended in a crushing victory
for the latter. . . . For the next thirty years the money¬
lender was at his zenith, and multiplied and prospered ex¬
ceedingly, to such good effect that the number of bankers
and moneylenders (including their dependents) increased
from 53,263 in 1868 to 193,890 in 1911.”

(M. L. Darling, “ The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity
and Debt ”, p. 208.)

Mr. Darling was of opinion that the moneylender had reached
his “ zenith ” by 1911, and in his evidence to the Agricultural
Commission in 1927 he indicated hopefully that “ in the Pun¬
jab the village moneylender is gradually reducing his business
everywhere, except in two districts, and that the main causes
of this reduction are the rapid growth of the co-operative
movement, the legal protection given to the peasant borrower
and the rise of the agriculturist moneylender ” (Report, p. 442).
But by the time of his next book, “ Rusticus Loquitur ”, pub¬
lished in 1930, despite a general optimistic tone, he had once
again to raise the alarm:

“ There is a danger that, despite the Land Alienation Act,
the expropriation of the peasant may begin again on a large
scale. There are already indications of the possibility in
the Western Punjab, where the large landlord is taking
advantage of the Act to add to his acres at the expense of
the peasantry ” (p. 326).

By 1935 the Punjab Land Revenue authorities were reporting :

“ The agriculturist moneylender is apparently gaining
strength in the rural areas.”

(Report of the Punjab Land Revenue Administration,

I935> P- 6-)

In his investigation, made in 1919, Mr. Darling found that I

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY

231

only 1 7 per cent, of the proprietors were free of debt, and that
the average debt was no less than 463 rupees, or twelves times
the amount of the land revenue.

A striking demonstration of the growth of indebtedness is
available from the district of Faridpur in Bengal. In 1906 an
enquiry was conducted in this district by J. C. Jack, sub¬
sequently a Judge of the Calcutta High Court, and its results
were afterwards published in his “ Economic Life in a Bengal
District ” (1916); these results showed at that time 55 per cent,
of the families in Faridpur still free from debt. A quarter of a
century later, in 1933-34, a new investigation was conducted
in the same district by the Bengal Board of Economic Enquiry,
and it was found that by this date only 16-9 per cent, of the
families in Faridpur were free from debt.

6. The Triple Burden

The peasant cultivator, if he has not yet fallen into the
ranks of the landless proletariat, thus lives to-day under a
triple burden. Three devourers of surplus press upon him to
extract their shares from the meagre returns he is able to
obtain with inadequate instruments from his restricted plot or
strips of land, even though those returns are already all too
small for the barest subsistence needs of himself and his family.

The claims of the Government for land revenue fall upon all,
as also for such indirect taxation as is able to reach his scanty
purchases (“ the self-sufficiency of the Indian villages ”,
laments the Simon Report, “ has limited the scope of internal
excises to a few articles such as salt, kerosene oil and alcoholic
liquors, for which the rural areas are dependent on extraneous
supply ” ; even so the revenue raised from the duty on salt,
the barest need of the poorest, reached no less than £6-6
million in 1936-37, or one-quarter of the land revenue).

The claims of the landlord for rent, additional to the Govern¬
ment land revenue, fall on the majority ; since, in addition to the
half of the total area of British India under the zemindari system,
at least one-third of the holdings in the ryotwari area are sub-let.

The claims of the moneylender for interest fall on the over¬
whelming majority, possibly, if the figures of Darling and the
Faridpur example given above are indicative, as high as
four-fifths.

What proportion of the produce of the peasant is thus taken

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

from him ? What is left him for his subsistence ? No return*
are available on this basic question of Indian agriculture. No
attempt has even been made to ascertain the total of rent
payments additional to land revenue, still less the volume of
interest on debt. Failing exact information, the Central
Banking Enquiry Committee Minority Report attempted an
estimate in the most general terms (pp. 36-7). Starting from
the basis of land revenue at 350 million rupees, this estimate
computed the interest on debt as probably, on the most con¬
servative calculation, three times this, or 1 ,000 million rupees,
and the total of rent, additional to land revenue, as one and
a half times land revenue. This would make a total burden
of close on five times the amount of land revenue. Yet this
is almost certainly an under-estimate, as the Report indicates.
The computation of rent taken by intermediaries as one and
a half times land revenue is based on a Bill which was intro¬
duced in Madras, and not adopted, to improve conditions by
making this a maximum; the real proportion, certainly in
Bengal (where gross rental is at least four times and possibly
six times land revenue), and probably elsewhere, even though
not as disproportionately as in Bengal, is likely to be higher.
The Report inclines to the view that “ wherever there are
intermediaries, though the conditions would vary enormously
from place to place and from man to man in view of different
kinds of tenure and productivity, the burden on the cultivators
would be much greater than is indicated by the proportion
1: 1 £ ”. The rate of interest on debt, calculated at 1,000
million rupees on a total of 9,000 million rupees, or 1 1 per
cent., is certainly too low; a customary rate with the village
moneylender is often 1 anna per rupee per month (sometimes
1 1 annas) or 75 per cent. The growth of debt since then to
an estimated double of the previous total will have correspond¬
ingly increased the burden. The real burden is therefore cer¬
tainly much heavier than even indicated by this estimate.
Yet this estimate would reach a total, if the incidence of the
salt tax is included, in the neighbourhood of 2,000 million
rupees a year, or 20 rupees per agriculturist. Against this we
have the estimate of the Central Banking Enquiry Committee
Majority Report that “ the average income of an agriculturist
in British India does not work out at a higher figure than
about 42 rupees or a little over £3 a year ” (p. 39).

BURDENS ON THE PEASANTRY 233

A closer picture of the rate of exploitation is available from
the detailed “ Study of a South Indian Village ” by N. S.
Subramanian (Congress Political and Economic Studies, No. 2,
1936). The village of Nerur is in the district of Trichinopoly,
and has a population of 6,200. In this study of the economics
of this village the exact budget is presented of the total income
of its population from all sources, the total outgoings and the
balance available for consumption. The degree of exploita¬
tion can here be seen with exceptional clarity, because
the land is mainly held by owners outside the village, and the
debts are mainly owing to creditors outside the village, so that
the bulk of rent and interest passes out of the village, and
represents a clear deduction from the net income of the village.

What are the results that this investigation revealed? The
gross income from agriculture, valuing all products at market
prices, amounted to Rs. 344,000. The net income from agri¬
culture, after deducting expenses of cultivation (not labour,
and excluding wages paid within the village), came to Rs.
212,000. Net income from non-agricultural sources (wages
earned outside, salaries of government servants and pensions,
interest on capital lent out) came to Rs. 24,000, making a
total income from all sources of Rs. 236,000.

Against this, the following outgoings from the village were
noted : land revenue, irrigation and allied cesses, Rs. 30,000 ;
rent to owners of land outside the village, Rs. 70,000 ; interest
on debt (calculated at the lowest rate of 8 per cent.), Rs.
40,000; rentals to Government for toddy and arrack shops,
tree taxes, rent to tree owners, Rs. 12,000. This makes a total
of Rs. 152,000 for Government revenue, taxation, rent and
interest. Together with minor outgoings of Rs. 4,000, the
total payments from the village of Rs. 156,000 leave a balance
for the village of Rs. 80,000 or under Rs. 13a head.

It will be seen that each inhabitant of this village earns an average of
38 rupees or -£2 1 7s .for the year. After the tax-collector, landlord and
moneylender have taken their share, he is left with under 1 3 rupees or 1 9s.
to live on for the year. He is left with one-third; two-thirds are taken.

“ Of the net total income more than two-thirds goes out of the village
hy way of land revenue and excise taxes, interest charges and rents to
non-resident owners .” This is the conclusion reached in this
detailed study, which has only been summarised in the above
round figures.
h 2

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

234

Carlyle described the situation of the French peasantry on
the eve of the Great Revolution in a famous passage :

“ The widow is gathering nettles for her children’s dinner :
a perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil de
Boeuf, has an alchemy whereby he will extract from her the
third nettle, and name it Rent and Law.”

A more mysterious alchemy has been achieved to-day in
British India. One nettle is left for the peasant; two nettles
are gathered for the seigneur.

Chapter X: TOWARDS AGRARIAN
REVOLUTION

“ Now awake, brave peasants awake, follow in Krishna’s 1 wake.

Thieves and robbers have entered our house. Do not sleep.

Now awake, brave peasants awake, follow in Krishna’s wake.

In the month of Baisakh 2 when the peasants reap the crops,

The Bohray 3 confiscate the land and landlords rob the crops.

There is no peace for a day.

They take the fruit of your labour right in front of your eyes,

And leave you not a grain to eat.

Now awake, brave peasants awake, follow in Krishna’s wake.”

Satoki Sharma, landless peasant poet of Muthra District, President of the
Village Poets' Conference, Faridabad, May 1938.

o n the basis of the foregoing analysis it is possible to sum¬
marise the main features of the growth of the agrarian crisis,
whose causes and preceding conditions have been developing
through the whole process of British rule and are to-day
gathering to a climax.

1 . Growth of the Agrarian Crisis

The first feature is the increasingly lop-sided and unbalanced
situation of agriculture in the national economy, the simul¬
taneous overcrowding and under-development, with still

1 Krishna drove Arjun’s chariot into the battlefield when Mahabharat
was going to be fought. Arjun was diffident to kill his own uncles and
relations, but Krishna explained to him the philosophy of war and prepared
him for battle.

2 Month in the Hindu calendar.

3 Village capitalists.

TOWARDS AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 235

continuing “ de-industrialisation ”, consequent on the colonial
position of India. This general situation affects and aggravates
all the remaining factors.

The second is the stagnation and deterioration of agriculture,
the low yields, the waste of labour, the failure to bring into
cultivation the culturable area, the lack of development
of the existing cultivated area, and even signs of deterioration
of yield, of land passing out of cultivation and of net decrease
of the cultivated area.

The third is the increasing land-hunger of the peasantry,
the constant diminution in the size of holdings, the spreading
of sub-division and fragmentation, and the growth in the
proportion of uneconomic holdings until these to-day con¬
stitute the majority of holdings.

The fourth is the extension of landlordism, the multiplica¬
tion of letting and sub-letting, the rapid growth in the numbers
of functionless non-cultivating rent-receivers, and the increas¬
ing transfer of land into the hands of these non-cultivating
owners.

The fifth is the increasing indebtedness of the cultivators
still in possession of their holdings, and the astronomic rise
of the total of rural debt in the most recent period.

The sixth is the extension of expropriation of the cultiva¬
tors, consequent on the growth of indebtedness, and the result¬
ing transfer of land to the moneylenders and speculators, the
outcome of which is reflected in the growth of landlordism
and of the landless proletariat.

The seventh is the consequent ever more rapid growth of the
agricultural proletariat, increasing in the single decade 1921-
3 1 from one-fifth to one-third of the total number of cultivators,
and since then developing further to becoming probably one-
half of the total number of cultivators.

That expropriation follows on indebtedness is universally
admitted. Already in i8g2 the Deccan Commission on the
working of the Agriculturists’ Relief Act recorded with
bitterness “ the transfer of the land in an agricultural country
to a body of rack-renting aliens, who do nothing for' the
improvement of the land ”, and pronounced the new class of
landowner to be “ probably the least fitted in the world to use
the powers of an irresponsible landlord. ... As a landlord he
follows the instincts of the usurer, making the hardest terms

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

236

possible with his tenant, who is also his debtor, and often
little better than his slave ”, In 1928 the Agricultural Com¬
mission admitted that “ the inevitability of indebtedness, as
it seems to the people, gives the moneylender enormous power.
It produces an almost fatalistic acceptance of the steady trans¬
fer of land into his possession and leaves his paramount position
unchallenged ” (p. 435). Incidentally, the virtuous indigna¬
tion of these Government Commissions against the wickedness
of the moneylender land-grabber omits to mention that his
power is based on his legal support by the State, including the
enforcement of these transfers of land, just as the exactions of
Government revenue and taxation first drove the cultivators
into his hands. In 1931 the Central Banking Enquiry Com¬
mittee registered the general conviction that

“ the indebtedness leads ultimately to the transfer of land
from the agricultural class to the non-agricultural money¬
lender, leading to the creation of a landless proletariat with
a reduced economic status. The result is said to be loss of
agricultural efficiency, as the moneylender sub-lets at a
rate which leaves the cultivator with a reduced incentive
to raise a good crop.”

(Report of the Central Banking Enquiry Committee,
P- 59-)

The 1931 Census Report reached the conclusion that “it is
likely that a concentration of land in the hands of non¬
cultivating owners is taking place (Census of India, 1931,
Vol. I, Part I, p. 288.)

But this whole process of deterioration, expropriation and
increasing class differentiation has been carried very much
farther, and very much more rapidly, forward during the last
few years as a consequence of the world economic crisis, the
collapse of agricultural prices and the following depression.

The extent of the collapse may be seen from the statistics
published by the Director-General of Commercial Intelligence
and Statistics. In 1928-29, the year before the onset of de¬
pression, the value of agricultural crops, taken at an average
harvest price, was about Rs. 1,034 crores. In 1933-34 was
only Rs. 473 crores — a fall of 55 per cent.

The effects of this sudden halving of his income on the
plight of the already impoverished cultivator may be imagined.

TOWARDS AGRARIAN REVOLUTION

237

For the money payments he was required to make received
no corresponding reduction. On the contrary, land revenue,
which stood at Rs. 33*1 crores in 1928-29, was actually main¬
tained at Rs. 33-0 crores in 1931-32, and had only fallen,
largely through sheer inability to pay and surrender of lands
in many cases, to Rs. 30-0 crores in 1933-34, or a drop of
slightly over 9 per cent.

The desperate position of the cultivators in Bengal can be
measured from the estimates given in the Bengal Jute Enquiry
Committee Report of 1934, with regard to the variations in
purchasing power between 1920-21 and 1932-33. According
to these the total value of marketable crops in Bengal fell
from an annual average of Rs. 72-4 crores for the decade
1920-21 to 1929-30, to Rs. 32-7 in 1932-33, whereas
monetary liabilities actually rose, from Rs. 27-9 to Rs. 28-3
crores. This meant that the “ free purchasing power ”
of the cultivators fell from Rs. 44-5 to Rs. 4-4 crores. The
Calcutta Index of Prices fell from an average of 223 to 126
for the same periods, a fall of 44 per cent., whereas “ free
purchasing power ” fell 90 per cent.

It was in this period that the last gold ornaments, the
traditional form of savings, were drained from the peasantry
to stave off bankruptcy, and served to maintain the annual
tribute from India when the exports of goods could no longer
cover it. Between 1931 and 1937 no less than £241 million
of gold was drained from India. But this “ distress ” gold
could only avail a section, and could not serve to put off the
evil day for more than a limited period.

In the United Provinces the number of abandonments of
land by tenants who could not pay rent reached as high as
71,430 in 1931 ; the number of orders for the forced collection
of land revenue was 256,284. We have already seen how in
Bengal in 1930 the Committee on Irrigation reported that
“ land is going out of cultivation ”.

By 1934-35 the agricultural returns revealed an absolute drop
in the area of cultivated land by over 5 million acres. In 1933-34
the net area sown with crops was 233-2 million acres. In
1 934-35 it was 226-9 million, or a drop of 5,266,000 acres.
The drop in the area under food grains was 5,589,000 acres.

The very slight recovery in prices since 1934 has not been
able to mitigate the depression or overcome the still continuing

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

238

effects of the collapse. “ Since 1934 ”, writes Anstey (“ Eco¬
nomic Development of India ”, 488 xxvii), “ the sufferings
of the people may have become more severe.”

The burden of debt was doubled by the halving of the culti¬
vators’ income. This inevitably meant an increase of debt,
which is now estimated to represent a total double the level
of 1931.

In 1921 the total of agricultural debt was estimated at
£400 million (see M. L. Darling, “ The Punjab Peasant in
Prosperity and Debt ”).

In 1931 the Central Banking Enquiry Committee Report
estimated the total at R's. 900 crores or £675 million.

In 1937 the first Report of the Agricultural Credit Depart¬
ment of the Reserve Bank of India estimated the total at Rs.
1,800 or £1,350 million.

From £400 million to £675 million in the ten years 1921-
31. From £675 to £1,350 million in the six years 1931-37.
These figures of the mounting total of the peasants’ debts
during this period give a very sharp expression of the deepen¬
ing agrarian crisis.

2. The Necessity of the Agrarian Revolution

The Indian peasantry are thus faced with very urgent
problems of existence, to which they must imperatively find
their solution.

Can a solution be found within the conditions of the existing
regime, within the existing land system and the rule of im¬
perialism based upon it ?

It is evident and universally admitted that far-reaching
changes are essential, reaching to the whole basis of land
tenure and the existing distribution of land, no less than to the
technique of agricultural production.

Sooner or later, landlordism must go. In India, as we have
seen, landlordism is an artificial creation of foreign rule, seeking
to transplant Western institutions, and has no roots in the
traditions of the people. In consequence, landlordism is here
more completely functionless than in any other country,
making no pretence even of fulfilling any necessary role of
conservation or development of the land, but, on the contrary,
intensifying its misuse and deterioration by short-sighted
excessive demands. It is a purely parasitic claim on the

TOWARDS AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 239

peasantry, and most commonly takes the form of absentee
landlordism in the case of the bigger estates, with the further
burden of additional parasitic intermediaries in the case of
the sub-landlords. There is no room for these parasitic
claims on the already scant produce of the peasantry. What¬
ever is produced is required, first, for subsistence, second,
for social needs, and third, for the development of agriculture.

The same applies to the moneylender and the mountain
of debt. Drastic scaling down and eventual cancellation are
inevitable. But this alone would be useless, or only a temporary
palliative, unless accompanied by alternative forms of organisa¬
tion to prevent the causes of indebtedness and replace the role
of the moneylender. This means, in the first place, the re¬
moval of excessive demands on the cultivator and the organisa¬
tion of economic holdings, and, in the second place, the pro¬
vision of cheap credit, pending collective organisation which
would finally replace the need of credit.

It must be recognised that, while temporary partial measures
of remission and reduction of rent, and reduction of debt
and of the rate of interest, are immediately possible, and were
attempted in varying degrees by the Congress Ministries in the
Provinces, a more basic approach involves the complete
reorganisation of the whole land system. The existence of a
large class of some 3 million petty landlords or sub-landlords,
very poor themselves, and whose holdings often represent the
savings of “ old age pension ” of low-income urban dwellers,
complicates the whole problem of landlordism. In conse¬
quence, any temporary measures for the reduction of rent
need to be so framed as to ensure that the main incidence falls
on the larger landlords. It has been suggested that the method
of a graded agricultural income tax (the present income tax
does not fall on agricultural income, and thus leaves the
landlords immune, while increasing the burden on industry)
could effect this object by placing the heaviest rates on the
large landlord incomes, while leaving the petty landlords
exempt. This, however, while increasing the income of the
State, and to that extent, if in the hands of a popular govern¬
ment or Congress Ministry, releasing potential funds for
agricultural development, would not meet the main im¬
mediate needs of lightening at once the burdens on the
peasantry, unless the funds so obtained were used to reduce

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

24O

land revenue with an accompanying obligatory equivalent
reduction of rent. Any more systematic tackling of the evil
of landlordism would accordingly require to be part of a
wider economic reorganisation, which would provide alternative
means of livelihood for the displaced petty holders, as indeed
for the millions who must inevitably be displaced from the
existing overcrowded agriculture. Hence the unity of the
tasks of agricultural and industrial development.

The essential problem is not only a problem of landlordism,
but one of a reorganisation of the whole existing land system
and distribution of holdings. A redistribution of holdings is
long overdue, both to combat the evil of uneconomic holdings
and of fragmentation. When it is recalled that in the Presi¬
dency of Bombay, for example, 48 per cent, of the farms
comprise less than five acres, and yet total not more than
2-4 per cent, of the entire area (Evidence of the Agricultural
Commission, Vol. II, part 1, p. 76), it will be seen how urgent
is the need for redistribution. Such redistribution, however,
inevitably cutting across a thicket of individual vested interests
on behalf of the claims of the majority, could not be ac¬
complished by the bureaucratic action of a foreign government,
even if it had the will, but could only be accomplished by the
initiative and acdon of the mass of the peasantry themselves,
under the leadership of a government representing them and
fighting for their interests.

Redistribution alone, however, can only be the preliminary
to tackling the whole problem of agricultural development,
raising the technique of agriculture to modern levels, bringing
in the use of agricultural machinery, and reclaiming the vast
areas of uncultivated culturable land. In this connection
it is worth recalling the estimate quoted by the Central
Banking Enquiry Committee (Enclosure XIII, p. 700) that,
if the output per acre were raised to the level of English
production, it would mean an immediate increase of wealth
by £ 1 ,000 million a year, while, if it were raised to the level
of Danish wheat production, it would mean an increase of
£1,500 million a year (or five times the gross value of agri¬
cultural crops in 1933-34, and equivalent to something like
doubling the probable actual income of the Indian people).
Such an advance, however, would require a decisive break
with the traditions of small-scale technique and govern-

TOWARDS AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 24I

mental neglect, and a development, under the conditions of
India, towards collective large-scale farming.

The necessity of large-scale farming in order to make
possible the use of large-scale machinery is recognised in
theory by the experts of imperialism :

“ To begin with prime movers, of which the largest
are steam ploughing tackle and the gyro-tiller, the position
of such large-scale machinery is clear. They can be
employed only on large estates, and even then only where
the necessary capital is available. Their work is uni¬
formly good and their use is limited solely by the above
conditions. The only possible hope of an expansion in the
demand for them rests in cooperative use, which is at present
far to seek.”

(Wynne Sayer, of the Imperial Agricultural Research
Institute, New Delhi, “ Use of Machinery in Agri¬
culture ” in the Times Trade & Engineering Supple¬
ment, April, 1939.)

From the point of view of the expert of imperialism such a
development is “ far to seek ”. But the rising social forces
of the ruined peasantry and landless agricultural labourers in
India are capable of showing in the future period that such
a development is not so “ far to seek ” as these experts imagine.
Here the example of the Soviet Union, with its rapid develop¬
ment in two decades, from the poverty-stricken peasantry
of Tsarism, through the abolition of landlordism, and after
the preliminary stage of redistribution, to the present prosperous
collective farms, is of especial importance for India.

3. Failure of Government Reform Policies

Is there any prospect of such a development, or basic tack¬
ling of the agrarian problem taking place under the conditions
of imperialism? To ask the question is to answer it. Such a
supposition would be admittedly fantastic. Quite apart
from any question of the will of those responsible for the
administration of imperialist rule, the interests of imperialism,
which are bound up, on the one hand, with the maintenance
of landlordism and pseudo-feudal institutions as the in¬
dispensable social basis of its rule against the masses, and, on
the other hand, with the finance-capitalist exploitation of the

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

24a

Indian people as a backward agricultural colony, prevent
any tackling of the agrarian problem.

The impotence of imperialism to tackle the ever more
urgent agrarian problem is admitted by the imperialists
themselves. Symbolic of this were the terms of reference of
the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India in 1927, which
was the first Commission appointed, after 1 70 years of British
rule, to consider the problems of “ agriculture and rural
economy in British India ”, but was forbidden to touch the
land system. Hence the complete practical ineffectiveness
ofits inevitably limited and minor recommendations, entombed
in seventeen volumes of Report and Evidence, which moulder
on the shelves, a mine of evidence on agricultural conditions,
to arrest in any degree the growth of the agrarian crisis, which
has reached its sharpest intensification since the Report.

The practical record of bankruptcy proves the impotence
of imperialism in relation to the agrarian problem. The
miserly provision during the most recent period of a very
limited range of agricultural research institutes and stations
(the establishment of the Imperial Agricultural Research
Institute was only made possible by the donation of a Chicago
millionaire; the total expenditure, Central and Provincial,
on the Agricultural Departments in 1936-37, was £'2\ million,
or 1 '4 per cent, of the total budget) cannot practically assist
the mass of the peasantry, so long as they have not the resources
for technical improvement, and so long as the exploitation
which holds them down in the most backward conditions of
semi-starvation, subjection and ignorance is untouched.

The failure of the various measures of agriculturists’ relief
legislation to check the growth of indebtedness has already
been recorded in the Agricultural Commission’s Report
(pp. 436-7) ; and in the same way the numerous attempts at
tenancy legislation for the protection of tenants have been
unable to check the rapid extension of landlordism, sub¬
letting and rack-renting, the privileged “ protected tenants ”
themselves very often becoming petty landlords, exploiting
unprotected tenants.

After the complete neglect and surrender to decay of the pre¬
vious irrigation system, as already recorded (see pages 194-6),
the subsequent irrigation works from the middle of the
nineteenth century onwards are commonly held up as a great

TOWARDS AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 243

achievement for agriculture. But the total irrigated area is
still only 18 per cent, of the cultivated area (51 out of 279
million acres in 1935-36), Government irrigation works
covering n per cent. (31 million acres in 1935-36). The
heavy charges for irrigation (in the majority of cases charged
separately) place it beyond the reach of the poor peasants,
and add to the burdens on the peasantry ; Government irriga¬
tion works yielded a net profit of 7-8 per cent, in 1918-21, and
even 5-7 per cent, in 1935-36.

Agricultural co-operation, almost entirely on the basis of
co-operative credit societies, instituted and fostered under a
Government Department, is the final Government panacea
for the ills of agriculture. The aims and hopes underlying the
Government’s special interest in co-operation, as a supposed
magic safeguard to burke land agitation on the issues of rent
and revenue, are naively explained by Darling in his latest
book. Referring to the Congress agitation for non-payment of
rent and land revenue, he notes that a district in the Punjab
“ became infected with the foolish propaganda ”, and com¬
ments : “ It is significant that only one of these villages had a
co-operative society.” He continues :

“ Co-operation is the best antidote to agitation of this
kind; and it cannot be doubted that last year the 20,000
societies of the Province had a sedative effect upon the
village, and helped to prevent any general spread of the
lawlessness which troubled many towns.”

(M. L. Darling, “ Wealth and Waste in the Punjab
Village ”, 1934, pp. 83-4.)

Unfortunately for these hopes, agricultural credit co-operation
cannot reach the mass of poor peasants who have no adequate
basis of resources for the requirements of membership. It
reaches essentially to the middle peasants who are already
better off and less in need of being rendered immune to
agitation.

“ At one end of the scale, there are people who are so well
off that they do not desire to incur the risk of unlimited
liability by enlisting themselves as members. At the other
end, there are persons who are so poor that they are refused
membership. It is therefore not unfair to assume that the

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

244

Co-operative population represents the medium agricultural
population.”

(Report of the Bengal Provincial Banking Enquiry
Committee, p. 69.)

“ Another great difficulty is that credit societies are of no
use in the poorest districts, where the cultivators are most in
need of aid. It is worse than useless to give loans to
cultivators who are permanently incapable — owing to frag¬
mentation, climatic or other difficulties — of making their
holdings pay. Thus it is chiefly in the most prosperous areas
that credit societies are successful.”

(Anstey, “ Economic Development of India ”, p. 202.)

This is borne out by the very limited range of agricultural
co-operation under the existing conditions. The total number
of members of agricultural co-operative societies in British India
in 1935-36 was 2,598,000, or 1 per cent, of the rural popula¬
tion. The proportion to families in the rural areas is given by
the Report of the Agricultural Commission as follows (p. 447) : I

PROPORTION OF MEMBERS OF AGRICULTURAL CO¬
OPERATIVE SOCIETIES TO FAMILIES IN RURAL AREAS

Per cent.

Bengal 3-8

Bombay 8-7

Central Provinces 2-3

Madras 7-9

Punjab io-2

United Provinces i-8

“ It will be seen ”, comments the Report, “ that, expect in the
Punjab, Bombay and Madras, the movement in the major
provinces has so far reached only a small part of the rural
population.” The proportions indicate the stratum reached
(the low figures are especially noticeable in the most hard-hit
provinces, where poverty is greatest, such as Bengal and the
United Provinces), and show that, so long as the existing dis¬
abilities and burdens continue, agricultural co-operation
cannot hope to solve the problems of the mass of the peasantry.

The recognition that a basic reorganisation, reaching to the
foundations of the land system, is necessary to solve the problem
of Indian agriculture — that is, the urgent life-problem of the
mass of the Indian people — and that such a reorganisation

TOWARDS AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 245

cannot be attempted by imperialism, but can only be accom¬
plished by the Indian people themselves under their own
responsible Government, is beginning to be widespread also
in the writings of the apologists of imperialism :

“ The urgent need for reforming village life is accepted by
politicians and officials, but specific remedies have often
proved inadequate or else involve revolutionary changes
which must certainly wait until India is autonomous.”

(Thompson and Garratt, “ Rise and Fulfilment of
British Rule in India ”, 1934, p. 648.)

“It has been suggested that the best way would be to
attack particular areas, one by one, and make a ‘ clean
sweep ’ of the whole system, including family and legal
rights of every kind (‘ The Consolidation of Agricultural
Holdings in the United Provinces ’, by H. Stanley Jevons,
1918, Bulletin No. 9 of the Economics Department of the
University of Allahabad). This, however, appears entirely
impracticable until fully responsible government has been
granted.”

(Anstey, “ The Economic Development of India ”,
1936, p. 101.)

“ Although it is true that the extensive adoption of known
improvements would suffice to effect a revolution in
agricultural production, it is doubtful whether the funda¬
mental difficulties preventing more rapid progress in the
past can be removed in the near future, as the necessary
reforms would entail a degree of interference with religious
and social institutions and customs which would be beyond
the competence of any Government that did not possess the
wholehearted confidence and support of the governed.”

{Ibid., p. 177.)

The principle underlying this approach is undoubtedly
correct, even though the argument is put forward by these
exponents as an argument for delaying and refusing any funda¬
mental reform in the immediate present (“ must certainly
wait ”, “ entirely impracticable until . . .”, “ doubtful . . .
in the near future ”).

The vast changes now urgently necessary, and admitted on
all sides to be necessary, in Indian agriculture — that is, in the
basis of the economy and life of India — can only be achieved by

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

246

the masses of the people of India themselves under the leader¬
ship of a Government of their own choice and making in
which they have confidence and which can enlist the free
activity and co-operation of the people themselves.1

That is why the achievement of the agricultural reorganisa¬
tion which is now necessary is linked up with the achievement
of national liberation and democratic freedom.

4. Growth of the Peasant Movement

It is in this situation that the growth of the peasants’ move¬
ment in recent years is one of the most significant developments
in India.

Peasant unrest and peasant risings can be traced with
increasing frequency during the period of British rule in India.
In their first primitive and spontaneous forms the anger and
unrest of the peasants found expression in isolated actions of
revenge and violence against individual moneylenders and
landlords. A Report to the Bombay Government in 1852
recorded :

“ These two cases of village moneylenders, murdered by
their debtors almost at opposite extremities of our Presidency
must, I apprehend, be viewed not as the results of isolated
instances of oppression on the part of creditors, but as
examples in an aggravated form of the general relations
subsisting between the class of moneylenders and our agri¬
cultural population. And if so, what an amount of dire
oppression on the one hand, and of suffering on the other, do
they reveal to us ? What must be the state of things which
can compel cultivators, proverbially patient and long-

1 In the Report of the Agricultural Commission occurs an interesting
statement, whose significance undoubtedly reaches further than its authors
may have intended :

11 Where the problem of half a million villages are in question, it
becomes at once evident that no official organisation can hope to reach
every individual in those villages. To do this, the people must be
organised to help themselves, and their local organisations must be
grouped into larger unions, until a machinery has been built up to convey
to every village whatever the different expert departments have to send
it ” (p.468).

This shrewd remark — all the more, because its authors did not intend it,
but were only concerned with the plain facts of the case — already contains
implicit within it an essential element of the principle of the future Village
Soviets.

TOWARDS AGRARIAN REVOLUTION

247

suffering, accustomed to more or less of ill-usage and in¬
justice, all the time, to redress their wrongs by murder and
in defiance of an ignominious death to themselves? How
must their sense of justice been violated? How must they
have been bereft of all hopes of redress from law or Govern¬
ment before their patient and peaceful natures could be
roused to the point of desperation required for such a
deed? ”

(Sir George Wingate, Report to the Bombay Govern¬
ment in 1852.)

Outstanding episodes of peasants’ up-risings in the second
half of the nineteenth century were the Santhal rebellion of
1855 and the Deccan riots of 1875.

But it is in the last two decades since the world war of
1914-18, and especially in the last decade since the world
economic crisis, that peasant unrest in India has advanced at a
speed without previous parallel and takes on a more and more
radical character. The world economic crisis knocked the
bottom out of the already exhausted agrarian economy of
India. The resulting process of rack-renting, debt enslave¬
ment and expropriation found its reflection in rising move¬
ments of the peasants in all parts of India. The peasants
spontaneously formed village committees to resist evictions,
boycott purchases of land sold in default and to unite against
the moneylenders.

The peasants were drawn into the political struggle of the
Indian National Congress on the basis of their own grievances ;
but the political struggle was never directly linked up with the
local Kisan Committees (peasant committees) . The peasants
came to feel the need to develop these and create their own
mass organisation. The village committees of peasants were
gradually linked up into District Committees, and these, at
first in a very loose manner, into provincial organisations.

In 1936 the first All-India Peasant organisation was formed
— the All-India Kisan Sabha. The first congress was held at
Faizpur in December 1936 at the same time as the Indian
National Congress. 20,000 peasants took part in the delibera¬
tions, many having marched hundreds of miles to attend.
Simultaneously at Faizpur the Indian National Congress
adopted its agrarian programme and the political solidarity of
the two organisations was declared.

THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM

248

By its third congress at Comilla in May, 1 938, the member- ]
ship of the All-India Kisan Sabha had reached 550,000. Out of
twenty linguistic provinces, nineteen had now Provincial Kisan 1
Committees. At this congress a clear programme was 1
adopted, both for the aims of the fight against landlordism and 1
imperialism and for the immediate demands of the peasants.

The formation of the Congress Ministries in 1937 proved a 1
powerful stimulus to peasant organisation. All through 1938 1
big peasants’ struggles took place in all the Provinces of India, I
and in many cases won partial success, against attempted rent
increases, against evictions, and against forced labour and I
illegal exactions and for reductions of rents. At the same time
gigantic peasant marches and demonstrations, reaching to
30,000 and 40,000 strong, the publication of weekly papers, |
song-books and leaflets and the initiation of peasant schools
proved the growing strength and consolidation of the movement.
Strong pressure was exerted on the Congress Ministries to
secure reforms and counter the influence of the landlords on
these Ministries.

The fourth All-India Kisan Sabha was held at Gaya in
April, 1939, and revealed a membership of 800,000. The
political resolution of this Congress declared :

“ The past year has witnessed a phenomenal awakening
and growth of organisational strength of the kisan of India.
Not only have the peasants taken a much greater part than
ever before in the general democratic movement in the ’]
country, but they have also awakened to a consciousness of
their position as a class, desperately trying to exist in the |
face of ruthless feudal imperialist exploitation. Their
class organisations, therefore, have multiplied and their ■
struggle against this exploitation has risen to a high level, ]
witnessed by the numerous partial struggles and has brought
a new political consciousness to them. They have realised 1
the nature of the forces they are fighting against, and the j
true remedies of their poverty and exploitation. Their 1
vision is no longer limited by their action taken in alliance j
with other anti-imperialist forces in the country. They have
therefore come to the conclusion that the logical end of their
day-to-day struggle must be a mighty attack on and the
removal of imperialism itself and an agrarian revolution
which will give them land, remove all intermediary exploiters

TOWARDS AGRARIAN REVOLUTION 249

between them and the State, and free them from the burden
of debt and secure to them the full enjoyment of the fruits
of their labour.

“ Secondly, the past year has been a year of small reliefs
for the peasantry, secured to them from the Provincial
Government. The crying inadequacy of these reliefs, the
greater obstacles created by the vested interests that have to
be encountered, showing them the patent incapability of
provincial autonomy to solve any of the basic agrarian
problems, have fully exposed the hollowness of the provincial
autonomy. The organisation is proud to declare to-day
the determination of the peasants of India to free themselves
from the feudalist-cum-imperialist exploitation and their
preparedness to do so are greater than ever before.

“. . . the Peasant Organisation affirms that the time has
come when the united forces of the country, embracing the
Congress, the States people, .peasants, workers and the
organisations and people generally, should take a forward
step and launch an attack on the slave constitution of the
imperialist domination itself, for complete national inde¬
pendence and a democratic State of the Indian people
leading ultimately to the realisation of a Kisan Mazdoor
Raj (Peasants’ and Workers’ Rule).

PART IV

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN
MOVEMENT

Chapter XI. THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM

1 Is There a People of India?

2 Questions of Caste, Religion and Language

3 Beginnings of Indian Nationalism

Chapter XII. THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL
STRUGGLE

1 The First Great Wave of Struggle 1905-1910

2 The Second Great Wave of Struggle 1919-1922

3 The Third Great Wave of Struggle 1930-1934

Chapter XIII. RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM

1 Growth of the Industrial Working Class

2 Conditions of the Working Class

3 Formation of the Labour Movement

4 Political Awakening

5 The Meerut Trial

6 The Modern Period

7 Problems of the Working Class Movement

Chapter XI : THE RISE OF INDIAN
NATIONALISM

“ The moment a mutiny is but threatened which shall be no mere
mutiny, but the expression of a universal feeling of nationality, at that
moment all hope is at an end, as all desire ought to be at an end, of
preserving our Empire.”— J. R. Seeley, “ The Expansion of England", 1883.

In the previous chapters we have dealt mainly with the
unhappy record and situation of the Indian people as the
object of history. A more cheerful view now opens before
us — the Indian people as the subject of history.

The preceding analysis has endeavoured to lay bare the
situation and the forces preparing and making inevitable the
advancing movement of the Indian people for liberation. This
movement in its first stages necessarily takes on the character
of a national democratic struggle of liberation from foreign
rule alongside and intertwined with the struggle of the
peasantry for liberation from the yoke of the landlords and
moneylenders.

The history of the Indian National Movement is the history
of the advancing consciousness and mass basis of this move¬
ment of national liberation, which began from a narrow circle
of the rising bourgeoisie and professional strata with the most
limited aims, and is only to-day, in the process of history,
reaching out to itffull stature and achievement, and preparing
the way for a still more far-reaching social liberation.

1. Is There a People of India

At the outset we are faced with a “ subtle ” question, which
is still frequently raised by the apologists of imperialism,
though it used to be more fashionable a generation ago than
it is to-day, when the force of facts and events has largely
destroyed its basis.

Is there a people of India ? Can the diversified assembly of
races and religions, with the barriers and divisions of caste,
of language and other differences, and with the widely varying
range of social and cultural levels, inhabiting the vast sub-

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

254

continental expanse of India, be considered a “ nation ” or
ever become a “ nation ” ? Is not this a false transposition of
Western conceptions to entirely different conditions? Is not
the only unity in India the unity imposed by British rule?

The answer of the older school of imperialists, before the
advancing strength of the nationalist movement had sicklied
o’er their naive self-confidence with doubt, used to be very
downright.

“ There is not and never was an India ”, was the firm
declaration of Sir John Strachey in 1 888, in the spirit of the
farmer at the zoo stoutly confronting the giraffe :

“ This is the first and most essential thing to learn about
India — that there is not and never was an India, or even any
country of India, possessing, according to European ideas,
any sort of unity, physical, political, social or religious:
no Indian nation, no ‘ people of India of which we hear
so much.”

(Sir John Strachey : “ India : its Administration and
Progress”, 1888, p. 5.)

Sir John Seeley was no less definite in his view :

“ The notion that India is a nationality rests upon that
vulgar error which political science principally aims at eradi¬
cating. India is not a political name, but only a geographical
expression like Europe or Africa. It does not mark the
territory of a nation and a language, but the territory of
many nations and many languages.”

(Sir John Seeley, “ The Expansion of England ”, 1883,
pp. 254-7.)

“ What is honour? ” asked Sir John Falstaff, and answered:

“ A word. What is in that word honour ; what is that
honour? Air.” In the same spirit of profound realism the
struggle of the millions of India for freedom from foreign rule
is proved by our modern Sir John’s a “ vulgar error ”. So
also the theorists of the Austrian Empire proved to their own
satisfaction that Italy was “ a geographical expression ”.

Since the emphatic denials of those earlier days, which failed
to arrest the advancing flood of the national movement, King
Canute’s courtiers have changed their tactics ; and the
alternative argument is now favoured that, if there is an Indian
nation, since all the efforts of imperialism, first to deny it, then

_ 1

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM

255

to suppress it have failed, in that case it is self-evident that the
existence of the Indian nation is a tribute to the achievement
of British rule which has brought it into being. What degree
of historical justification there is for this claim we shall con¬
sider in the next section.

But the argument from diversity, by implication either
inferring the denial of Indian nationality, or intended to
justify extreme slowness in its recognition, is still widely
current. It is still to be found in all its glory in the principal
propaganda piece of modern British imperialism about India,
the “ Survey Volume ” of the Simon Report, which was
produced in 1930 for wholesale circulation as a supposed
information document for the general public on Indian
questions. This memorable document of State begins by
coolly declaring that “ what is called the ‘ Indian Nationalist
Movement ’ ” (thus named, as it were, with a pair of tongs)
in reality “ directly affects the hopes of a very small fraction
of the teeming peoples of India ”. The brilliant insight of
this judgement was immediately afterwards proved by the
character of the civil disobedience movement of 1930-34 and
the results of the elections of 1937. Thereafter the Report
proceeds — always in the name of a purely scientific, impartial
and objective presentation of pure facts for knowledge — to
endeavour to terrorise the reader with the customary picture
of the “ immensity and difficulty ” of the Indian “ problem ”,
the “ immensity of area and population ”, the “ complication
of language ” with no less than “ 222 vernaculars ”, the
“ rigid complication of innumerable castes ”, the “ almost
infinite diversity in its religious aspect ”, the “ basic opposi¬
tion ” of Hindus and Moslems, this “ variegated assemblage
of races and creeds ”, this “ conglomeration of races and
religions ”, this “ congeries of heterogeneous masses ”, and
similar polite expressions in abundance.

The purpose of this approach is obvious. It is to create in
the mind of the average unprejudiced reader the impression
of the impossibility of any scheme of rapid self-government for
India, and to induce him to draw as his main conclusion (in
the words of H. W. Nevinson, reviewing the Report at the time
in all good faith in a socialist journal)

“ the almost insuperable difficulty of constructing (not

criticising) a constitution or form of government to suit

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

a minor continent including 560 native Indian States
(nominally independent), races of 222 separate languages,
peoples of two main and hostile religions (168,000,000
Hindus and 60,000,000 Moslems in British India alone),

1 0,000,000 outcasted or ‘ depressed ’ populations, also called
‘ Untouchables ’. . . . Everyone who thinks of India ought
to know these bare facts to start with. If he does not, he
should read Vol. I of the Report. If he neither knows nor
reads, let him hold his peace.”

(H. W. Nevinson, review of the Simon Report in thei
New Leader, June 27, 1930.)

The fact that a conclusion of such a character should have:
been reached by a sympathetic left-wing representative like
H. W. Nevinson in a “ socialist ” journal, and that this should
have been typical of the reception, not merely in the official
Press, but in almost the entire left Press at the time, liberal,
labour or “ socialist ”, all accepting this official propaganda at
face value, is indicative of the success of this method of
approach. For in truth this approach, despite all its air of
impartial and statesman-like recognition of unwelcome facts,
is propaganda, and barefaced propaganda. It is by no means ;
a presentation of the elementary “ bare facts ” which everyone
“ ought to know ” about India, but a conscious and deliberate
selection of facts with a purpose, and a distortion even of all
that underlies those facts. This official picture of India
to-day, of the supposed “ conditions of the problem ”, sup-'
presses all that is cardinal for the real understanding of the
present position of India, suppresses completely all facts of
the imperialist exploitation of India, of the role of British
finance-capital in India, of the profits made by the British
ruling class, of the methods of exploitation underlying the
misery of the people, of the rising struggle of the masses
(irrespective of racial or religious divisions) and of the methods
of suppression of that struggle by imperialism. These are the
essential “ bare facts ” which an honest socialist journal or
democratic journal should declare everyone “ ought to know ”
about India. Instead, this Report (“ the Simon Commis
sion . . . has done its work courageously and thoroughly .
appreciation must be expressed, so far as this first report is
concerned, of the care with which Sir John Simon and hi.
colleagues have approached their task. I doubt whether the

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 257

most extreme Nationalist will be able to point to serious
inaccuracies on major facts ” — Fenner Brockway in the New
Leader, June 13, 1930) dwells lovingly on whatever facts can
be made to appear unfavourable to the people erf' India and to
sustain the official principle of “ Divide and Rule
A citizen of the United States would be undoubtedly
astonished if he were to read in a British Blue Book the
following impartial survey of the condition of his country :

“ The sub-continent of the United States is characterised
by the greatest diversity of climate and geographical features,
while its inhabitants exhibit a similar diversity of race and
religion. The customary talk of the United States as a
single entity tends to obscure, to the casual British observer,
the variegated assemblage of races and creeds which make
up the whole. In the City of New York alone there are to
be found nearly a hundred different nationalities, some of
which are in such great numbers that New York is at once
the largest Italian city, the largest Jewish city and the largest
Negro city in the world. The contiguity of such diverse
elements has been a fruitful cause of the most bitter com¬
munal conflicts. In the Southern States especially, this
has led to inter-racial riots and murders which are only
prevented from recurring by the presence of an external
impartial power able to enforce law and order. The
notoriety of the rival gangs of Chicago gunmen and of the
Chinese hongs in New York have diverted attention from
the not less pressing problems presented to the Paramount
Power by the separate existence of the Mormons in Utah,
the Finns in Minnesota, the Mexican immigration up the
Mississippi and the Japanese on the West Coast : not to speak
of the survival in considerable numbers of the aboriginal
inhabitants.” 1

Yet this is the spirit in which the Simon Report approached
its task of the survey of the condition of India.

Indeed, it is worth noting that similar profound analyses
and “ proofs ” of the impossibility of unity of the American
people were equally current in English expression on the very
eve of the American Revolution. Lecky records in his history :

1 This admirable parody is from the pen of R. Page Arnot, in his article
on “ The Simon Commission Report ” in the Labour Monthly for July, 1930,
which is worth consulting.

258

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

“ Great bodies of Dutch, Germans, French, Swedes,
Scotch and Irish, scattered among the descendants of the
English, contributed to the heterogeneous character of the
colonies, and they comprised so many varieties of govern-']
ment, religious belief, commercial interest and social type,
that their union appeared to many incredible on the very
eve of the Revolution.”

(W. E. H. Lecky, “ History of England in the Eighteenth
Century ”, Vol. IV, p. 12.)

And again :

“ A country where so large a proportion of the inhabitants
were recent immigrants, drawn from different nations and
possessing different creeds, where, owing to the vast extent
of the territory and the imperfection of the means of com¬
munication, they were thrown very slightly in contact with
one another, and where the moneymaking spirit was
peculiarly intense, was not likely to produce much patriotism
or community of feeling.” (Ibid.., p. 34.)

Burnaby, who travelled in the North American colonies in
1 759 and 1 760, wrote :

“ Fire and water are not more heterogeneous than the
different colonies in North America. . . . Such is the
difference of character, of manners, of religion, of interest,
of the different colonies, that I think, if I am not wholly
ignorant of the human mind, were they left to themselves,
there would soon be a civil war from one end of the continent
to the other ; while the Indians and negroes would with
better reason impatiently watch the opportunity of exter¬
minating them altogether.”

Otis, the well-known American patriot, wrote in 1 765 :

“ God forbid these should ever prove undutiful to their
mother-country. Whenever such a day shall come, it will
be the beginning of a terrible scene. Were these colonies
left to themselves to-morrow America would be a mere
shambles of blood and confusion.” 1

The modern Die-Hard’s prophecies of the “ dull roar and

1 These and other similar quotations can be consulted in the interesting
appendix on “ Contemporary India and America on the Eve of Becoming
Free ” in Major B. D. Basu’s “ Ruin of Indian Trade and Industries ”,
Calcutta, 1935, pp. 254-67.

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM . 259

scream of carnage and confusion” (Churchill), if the British
were to leave India, are thus only the stage-encore of a familiar
recitation.

The democrat will accordingly be on his guard against
these interested prophecies and presentations of facts on the
part of the rulers of an empire on the eve of the victory of a
national liberation movement.

The question of the historical degree of unity of India in
the past can be left to the historians. It is worth noting that
the modern school of historical research, even on the side of
imperialism, no longer endeavours to uphold the downright
denials of the Seeleys and Stracheys half a century ago,
based on very slender information.

“ The political unity of all India, although never attained
perfectly in fact, always was the ideal of the people through¬
out the centuries. The conception of the universal sovereign
as the Chakravartin Raja runs through Sanskrit literature
and is emphasised in scores of inscriptions. The story of
the gathering of the nations to the battle of Kurukshetra, as
told in the Mahabharata, implies the belief that all the
Indian peoples, including those of the extreme south, were
united by real bonds and concerned in interests common to
all. European writers, as a rule, have been more conscious
of the diversity than of the unity of India. Joseph Cunning¬
ham, an author of unusually independent spirit, is an
exception. When describing the Sikh fears of British
aggression in 1845, he recorded the acute and true observa¬
tion that ‘ Hindustan, moreover, from Caubul to the valley
of Assam, and the island of Ceylon, is regarded as one
country, and dominion in it is associated in the minds of
the people with the predominance of one monarch or one
race.’ India therefore possesses, and always has possessed
for considerably more than two thousand years, ideal
political unity. . . .

“ India beyond all doubt possesses a deep underlying
fundamental unity, far more profound than that produced
either by geographical isolation or by political suzerainty.
That unity transcends the innumerable diversities of blood,
colour, language, dress, manners and sect.”

(Vincent A. Smith, “ The Oxford History of India ”,
1919, Introduction, pp. ix-x.)

260 .

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

The present degree of unity is more important to consider j
and here something needs to be said on those divisions which
are so prominently displayed and emphasised by imperialist
propaganda as obstacles to self-government and justifications
for the necessity of continued British rule.

2. Questions of Caste, Religion and Language

Undoubtedly the Indian people has a heavy heritage of
burdens, survivals from the past, divisions and inequalities to
overcome, as every people has its own inheritance and special
problems. One of the strongest reasons for the necessity of
self-government is in order that the progressive leaders of
the people of India shall have the opportunity to tackle and
solve these problems and carry forward the Indian people
along the path of democratic and social advance. For the
experience of the past half-century especially has already
shown that, in the modern phase of imperialist decay (with
the ending of the objectively progressive role of British rule
in India in the first half of the nineteenth century), the
offensive against these evils, such as untouchability, caste
restrictions, communal divisions, illiteracy and the like, is
more and more actively led by the representatives of the
Indian national movement, while imperialism has maintained an
obstructive role against innumerable projects of reform, pressed
and demanded by India’s representatives, and has worked in
such a way as to sustain and even intensify these evils.

A policy which in practice fosters and maintains the division and
backwardness of a subject people, and even by its administrative
methods intensifies these evils, while in public it loudly proclaims these
evils as a melancholy proof of the incapacity of the people for unity and
self-government, condemns itself.

With regard to the communal or religious divisions, which
constitute one of the most serious and urgent problems before
the Indian people, it will be necessary to treat this question
more fully in a subsequent chapter (see Chapter XIV, 2).
Proof will be given that in fact — in spite of official denials — |
this division has been undoubtedly fostered under British
rule as a conscious act of policy. Indeed, the Simon Report
itself was compelled to admit that the Hindu-Moslem
antagonism is a special feature of the territories under direct
British rule (“ the comparative absence of communal strife

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 261

in the Indian States to-day ”, p. 29), and has increased under
British rule (“ in British India a generation ago . . . com¬
munal tension as a threat to civil peace was at a minimum.
But the coming of the Reforms and the anticipation of what
may follow them have given new point to Hindu-Moslem com¬
petition ”, p. 29). The solution of the communal problem will
certainly never be found until the imperialist ruler is removed.

The same applies to the Indian States or Princedoms, which
owe their maintenance and continued existence entirely tof
the British protecting hand.

With regard to caste restrictions and untouchability, the
outraged indignation of the representatives of the Carlton
Club and of the colour-bar (incidentally, the meaning of the
original word for caste is “ colour ”, and reflected the sense of
superiority and exclusiveness of the Aryan invaders) against
all caste restrictions and untouchability will undoubtedly be
read with deep appreciation by the so differently placed
scavengers in Britain, who, as is well known, are freely invited
to the dining-tables of Mayfair. It is impossible not to
appreciate the benevolent desire of the representatives of
imperialism to magnify and multiply the numbers of the
depressed classes and untouchables. A generation ago, before
the political situadon was so acute, the number of 30 millions
was commonly given. Valentine Chirol, in his “ Indian
Unrest ” in 1910, raised the figure to 50 millions. Anstey’s
“ Economic Development of India ”, first published in 1929,
boldly plumps, without evidence, for 60 millions; and this
figure has been generally favoured on the platform and in
Parliament as the most impressive. The semi-ofiicial sym¬
posium “ Modern India ”, published under the editorship
ofSir John Cumming in 1931, hovers “ from 30 to 60 millions”.
The Simon Report tries to fix the figure at 43 millions. But
even this total dissolves on analysis ; for it is pointed out that
in the three provinces of Bengal, United Provinces and
Bihar and Orissa, “ the connecdon between theoredcal un¬
touchability and practical disability is less close, and a special
investigation might show that the number of those who are
denied equal rights in the matter of schools, water and the
like is less than the total given for the depressed classes in
those areas ” (p. 41). Unfortunately, these three Provinces
cover the majority of the supposed total of 43 millions, and

262 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

comprise 28 J millions with regard to whom this caveat has to
be entered. There remain 15 millions with “ a wide margin
of possible error The value of these figures is only sufficient
to show their valuelessness.

The fight against untouchability has been led, not by the
British Government, but by Gandhi and the national move¬
ment. Indeed, the incident will be recalled when certain
famous temples in Southern India which had been traditionally
closed to the untouchables were, under the inspiration of
Gandhi’s crusade, thrown open to them ; and police were
thereupon dispatched to prevent access of the untouchables,
on the grounds that such access would be offensive to the
religious sentiments of the population, which it was the sacred
duty of the Government to protect.

The British Government has certainly been concerned to
organise a separate electoral roll of the untouchables or
depressed classes, with guaranteed separate representation,
in order to introduce a new element of division and weaken
the National Congress. In this way the Scheduled Castes
have been added to the lengthening list of separate
electorates. But for the opinion of the untouchables them¬
selves on this loving care, the evidence of their officially
recognised leader, Dr. Ambedkar, who is accepted by the
Government as their leader and spokesman, may be taken, as
given in his Presidential Address to the All-India Depressed
Glasses Congress in 1930:

“ I am afraid that the British choose to advertise our
unfortunate conditions, not with the object of removing
them, but only because such a course serves well as an
excuse for retarding the political progress of India.”

(Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Presidential Address to the All-
India Depressed Classes Congress, August, 1930.)

Dr. Ambedkar continued :

“ Before the British you were in the loathsome condition
due to your untouchability. Has the British Government
done anything to remove your untouchability ? Before
the British you could not draw water from the village well.
Has the British Government secured you the right to the
well? Before the British you could not enter the temple.
Can you enter now? Before the British you were denied

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIpNALISM 263

entry into the police force. Does the British Government
admit you in the force? Before the British you were not
allowed to serve in the military. Is that career now open
to you? Gentlemen, to none of these questions you can
give an affirmative answer. Those who have held so much
power over the country for such a long time must have
done some good. But there is certainly no fundamental
improvement in your position. So far as you are con¬
cerned, the British Government has accepted the arrange¬
ments as it found them and has preserved them faithfully
in the manner of the Chinese tailor who, when given an old
coat as a pattern, produced with pride an exact replica,
rents, patches and all. Your wrongs have remained as open
sores and they have not been righted. . . .

“ Nobody can remove your grievances as well as you can,
and you cannot remove them unless you get political power
in your own hands. No share of this political power can
come to you so long as the British Government remains as
it is. It is only in a Swaraj constitution that you stand any
chance of getting the political power into your own hands
without which you cannot bring salvation to your people.”

The interests of the depressed classes and their liberation are
inevitably linked up with the common national movement
of liberation.

The crippling institutions of caste will only be overcome,
not by preaching and denunciation, but by the advance of
modern industry and political democracy, as new social ties
and common interest replace the old bonds. As Marx wrote :

“ Modern industry will dissolve the hereditary divisions
of labour, upon which rest the Indian castes, those decisive
impediments to Indian progress and Indian power.”

(Marx : “ Future Results of British Rule in India ”,
New York Tribune, August 8, 1853.)

To-day the Census Reports already bear witness to the beginning
of realisation of this prediction of Marx seventy years earlier :

“In places like Jamshedpur where work is done under
modern conditions, men of all castes and races work side
by side in the mill without any misgivings regarding the
caste of their neighbours.”

(Bihar and Orissa Census Report, 1921.)

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

264

With regard to the division of languages, and the famous
“ 222 separate languages ”, once again the hand of imperialist
propaganda is visible in the fantastic exaggeration of this
difficulty and in the character of the statistics provided for
misleading the innocent. Different estimates can be provided
from different authorities, ranging from 16 to 300. This
variation already betrays the political interest behind the
estimates. The 1901 Census reached a total of 147 languages.
If we compare this with the 1 92 1 Census, used by the Simon
Report, we reach the interesting result that, whereas .the
population increased from 292 millions in 1901 to 316 millions
in 1921 (without any influx of new foreign populations), the
number of languages spoken increased from 147 in 1901 to
222 in 1921 (without the addition of any new or polyglot
territory). Truly an amazing capacity of this Indian popula¬
tion to proliferate new languages in scores in a single generation.

But a more detailed examination will throw still further
light on this heroic mythology of the “ 222 separate languages ”
which have so impressed non-Indian opinion.1 Of these
“222 separate languages ” it will be found that no less than
134 belong to the “ Tibeto-Burman sub-family”. What is
the character of these “ languages ” ? Here light is thrown
by the fuller list of 103 Indo-Chinese languages published in
the “ Imperial Gazetteer of India ”, 1909, Vol. I, pp. 390-394.
In this list of 103 languages we are given the number of speakers
of each of these “ different languages ”, and we find, for
example, the following figures :

Number of Language. Number of Speakers.

Kabui

Andro

Kasui

Bhranu

Aka

Tairong

Nora

It is clear that the philosophical conception of language as a

means of communication between human beings will have to

1 An exhaustive analysis will be found in the article on “ Faked Indian
Statistics as Imperialist Propaganda ”, published in the Labour Monthly of
September, 1930, to which reference should be made for a fuller version
of the facts given above.

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 865

be revised in the light of Andro, spoken by one person ; Nora,
with a grand total of two speakers, just scrapes through.

A detailed examination, which is only of value for exposing
this type of imperialist propaganda, reveals (i) that the
number of “ languages ” of the so-called Indo-Chinese family
rose from 92 in 1901 to 145 in 1921 ; (2) that these “languages”
are not spoken in India at all, but in outlying districts in the
Himalayas and the Burmo-Chinese frontier; (3) that the vast
majority of these are not languages at all, but either very
minor dialects or names of tribes; (4) that out of the 103 .
“languages” included in the group, 17 are spoken by less
than 100 persons; 39 by less than 1,000; 65 by less than
10,000; 83 by less than 50,000; 97 by less than 200,000.
The only language in the group is Burmese.

Yet out of such materials is constructed the imposing total of
“ 222 separate languages ” which is trotted out on every
imperialist platform, in every newspaper and in every parlia¬
mentary debate.

Since then the 1931 Census has reduced the total to 203.

It is evident that some of the speakers of the languages spoken
by one, two or four persons have unfortunately died in the
interval, thus weakening by their thoughtless action the
imperialist case against Indian self-government. The separa¬
tion of Burma from India since 1937 will cause a still heavier
mortality, since the majority of the languages (128) used to
prove the divisions of the Indian people belong to Burma. ^
It is interesting to note that, in order to prove the case for the
separationof Burma, theobstacle of the multiplicityof languages
which had mainly been built up on the basis of Burma,
suddenly disappeared and gave place to insistence on the
essential unity of language in Burma. “ Though as many as
128 indigenous tongues are distinguished in the province.”
writes the Simon Report (p. 79), “ nearly seven-tenths of the
whole population — and the proportion is growing — speak
Burmese or a closely allied language.” So elastic are imperial¬
ist statistics in the interests of policy.

The problem of a common language for India is already on
the way to solution on the basis of Hindustani (Hindi or Urdu
according to the script), the official national language of the
Congress, which is already either spoken or understood by the
majority of the Indian people. “ Hindu preachers and

266

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

Mahomedan Moulvis ”, notes Gandhi (“ Speeches and I
Writings ”, p. 398), “ deliver their religious discourses through¬
out India in Hindi and Urdu, and even the illiterate masses
follow them.” Similarly in the Indian army, where there
is no room for nonsense about “222 separate languages :
military orders are given in Hindustani. The conception,
often spread, of English as the supposed common language
or lingua franfa for India is a myth ; after a century of English
“ education ” only 1 per cent, of the population can read and
write English (3^ millions out of 350 millions). As against
this, “ Hindustani with its various dialects accounts for over
120 million of people, and is spreading ” (J. Nehru, “ India
and the World ”, p. 188). The problem of languages in
India is in practice a problem of some twelve or thirteen
languages (“ there are twelve main languages in India ”,
Sir Harcourt Butler in “ Modern India ”, 1932, p. 8) of which
the nine North Indian languages are extremely closely allied,
so that even the Census Report of 1921 had to admit:

“ There is no doubt that there is a common element in '
the main languages of Northern and Central India which J
renders their speakers without any great conscious change ’
in their speech mutually intelligible to one another, and this '
common basis already forms an approach to a lingua franca '
over a large part of India.”

(Census of India, 1921, Vol. I, Part I, p. 199. )*

It would have been more honest if the Simon Report had !
reproduced this passage instead of continuing to spread what
it knew to be a misleading picture.

These special questions, which are commonly advanced as
supposedly insuperable obstacles to the unity of the Indian
people or to any rapid advance to self-government, and which
all have their place as problems to be solved and soluble by
national statesmanship, have only required this detailed
treatment here in order to expose the type of fabricated I

1 It is amusing to note that as soon as the British exploiters have occasion
to approach the question of the Indian market, the language difficulty,
which for political purposes assumes such alarming proportions, is suddenly
seen as easily manageable :

“ The language approach is not by any means so insuperable as would
appear from the existence of scores of languages.”

(H. J. Fells, “ The Indian Market : Hints to the British Exporter *\ J
The Times Trade and Engineering India Supplement , April, 1939.)

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 267

imperialist propaganda which is built upon their basis, and
to warn democratic opinion outside India from being misled
by this type of propaganda.

The real existence of the Indian nation, the real unity of the
Indian people will not be proved or disproved in the chamber
of the statistician or the debating halls of parliaments. It will
be proved, is being proved, and, in the light of the experience
of the past two decades, we may say, has already been proved
in the field of action.

3. Beginnings of Indian Nationalism
In the modern period the reality of the Indian nation can
in practice no longer be denied, although the echoes of the
old denial still survive. In consequence, with curious forget¬
fulness of the previous arguments which up to a generation ago
so emphatically denied the Indian claim to national existence
and dismissed India as “ a geographical expression ”, the
alternative argument is now in general favour with the more
sophisticated spokesmen of imperialism, to the effect that, if
the Indian nation exists and has compelled recognition of its
existence, then this must be regarded as the proud achieve¬
ment of imperialism, which has brought Indian national
consciousness into existence and planted the seeds of British
democratic ideals in India ; and even, by a kind of teleological
anachronism, this is regarded as having been the real objective
of British rule from the beginning.

“ The politically minded portion of the people of India
. . . are intellectually our children. They have imbibed
ideas which we ourselves have set before them, and we ought
to reckon it to their credit. The present intellectual and
moral stir in India is no reproach, but rather a tribute to
our work.”

(Montagu-Chelmsford Report, 1918, p. 115.)
Thus, not the rising irreconcilable struggle of the Indian
people against imperialism, but the beneficent handiwork of
the philanthropic imperialist rulers themselves, is guiding the
Indian people to national freedom. This is the picture which
the modern cultured imperialist seeks to create in utterances
for public consumption. The now much rarer public sur¬
vivals of the old-fashioned type of utterance (such as the famous

268

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

declaration of Joynson-Hicks that “ we did not conquer India
for the benefit of the Indians. I know that it is said at mis¬
sionary meetings that we have conquered India to raise the
level of the Indians. That is cant. We conquered India by
the sword, and by the sword we shall hold it. We hold it as
the finest outlet for British goods ”, or of Lord Rothermere
that “ many authorities estimate that the proportion of the
vital trading, banking and shipping business of Britain directly
dependent upon our connection with India is 20 per cent.
India is the lynch-pin of the British Empire. If we lose
India, the Empire must collapse — first economically, then
politically ”) are now regarded in high official quarters as in
bad taste and tactically undesirable in an already sufficiently
embarrassing situation.

There is no question of the change of tone in official utter¬
ance in the modern period. But the sceptical may be par¬
doned for enquiring whether the change of tone is not the re¬
flection, rather than the cause, of the rising national movement.

Nothing could be more dangerous than for the newt one of
official utterance to give rise to any illusions as to the iron
realities of imperialist policy and power, or as to the intention
of imperialism by every means at its command to maintain
that power. These realities it will be necessary to consider
further when we come to the question of the new Constitution.

The practical significance of this line of argument is evident.
These patronising claims of modern imperialism, to take
Indian Nationalism under its wing as its own foster-child are
by no means mere harmless self-delusions and self-consolations
of a declining Power. The theory of imperialism as a benefi¬
cent civilising system for helping forward and training back¬
ward peoples into national consciousness and eventual self-
government (what has been termed the theory of “ de¬
colonisation ”) was originally put forward by a school of
socialist renegades and servants of imperialism like MacDonald
— who subsequently showed his practical understanding of the
“ civilising ” mission of imperialism by his reign of terror in
India and imprisonment of 60,000 Indians for the crime of
demanding democratic rights. To-day this theory has been
taken up by the modern spokesmen of imperialism with a very
practical purpose. For the practical conclusion to be drawn
is that in that case a “ sane ” and “ constructive ” Indian

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 269

Nationalism will cease to regard imperialism as its enemy,
will abandon the struggle for national independence and
replace it by conciliation and co-operation with imperialism,
and regard imperialism as its guide and tutor to lead the
Indian people gently forward to a vague and undefined self-
government at a hypothetical future date at a tempo to be
determined by the imperialists.

Is it correct to see Indian Nationalism as the offspring and
outcome of British rule ?

There is undoubtedly a sense in which this claim is correct,
although certainly not the sense in which the makers of the
claim intend it.

The Japanese invaders in China at the present time (1940)
could no doubt claim, if they wished to do so, that by their
invasion and aggression they are helping to forge the national
unity of the people of China. And this claim would be
objectively correct.

In the same way, insofar as modern Indian Nationalism
has come into being and grown up in struggle against imperial¬
ism, imperialism can claim to be its precedent condition and
starting-point, just as Tsarism was the starting-point of the
victory of the working class in Russia, or Charles I of Cromwell.

This is not, however, what the modern imperialist apologists
wish to imply. They wish to imply that the positive achieve¬
ment of British rule, not only by the political unification of
India and the establishment of a modern centralised adminis¬
tration (here they are on strong ground), but also by the
imposition of British legal and cultural institutions and the
enforcement of an “ Anglicised ” education as the only medium
of instruction for the tiny minority receiving any education,
inevitably laid the seeds of Indian Nationalism and implanted
in the educated class English ideals of parliamentary govern¬
ment and democratic freedom. “ English history taught the
lesson of the gradual acquisition of popular liberties, English
political thought as expressed by Burke and Mill reinforced
the lesson. Educated Indians, essentially keen intellectually,
and readily stirred to enthusiasm, perceived a new revelation ”
(L. F. Rushbrook Williams, “What about India?” 1938, p. 105.)

What is the measure of truth in this claim ?

The democratic evolution of the modern age, which
developed in many lands, including England as one of its

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

270

earliest homes, is not the peculiar patent of England. Nor is
it correct that it requires the alien domination of a country
in order to implant the seeds of the democratic revolution.
The American Declaration of Independence, and still more
the great French Revolution, with its gospel of Liberty,
Equality and Fraternity, far more than the already ageing •
English parliamentary-monarchical compromise, were the
great inspirers of the democratic movement of the nineteenth
century. In the twentieth century the Russian Revolutions
of 1905 and 1917 have performed a corresponding role as the
signal and starting-point of the awakening of the peoples, and
especially of the awakening consciousness of the subject
peoples of Asia and all the colonial countries to the claim of
national freedom.

That the Indian awakening has developed in unison with
these world currents can be demonstrated from the stages of
its growth. It is worth recalling that Ram Mohun Roy, the
1 father of Indian Nationalism in the first half of the nineteenth

century, when he made the voyage to England in 1830,
insisted, at considerable inconvenience, in travelling on a
French ship to demonstrate his enthusiasm for the principles
of the French Revolution. The National Congress, which
was originally instituted under official inspiration as an
intended instrument against the rising movement of the
people and to safeguard British rule, slept for twenty years,
and first awakened from its slumbers in the great popular
ferment and stirring after 1905, then again, when the wave of
unrest had subsided, settled down to placid loyalist modera¬
tion, and once again, on a still more overwhelming scale,
swept forward with the world movement of advance after 1917.

The notion that India could have had no part in these
world currents, or pressed forward to the fight for national
and democratic freedom, without the interposition of England,
is fatuous self-complacency. On the contrary, the example of
China has shown how far more powerfully the national demo¬
cratic impulse has been able to advance and gain ground
where imperialism had not been able to establish any complete
previous domination ; and this national democratic move¬
ment of liberation has had to struggle continuously against
the obstacles imposed by imperialist aggression and penetration.

Did the Indian national movement arise because the

_ : J

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 27I

educated class in India were taught by their masters to read
Burke, Mill and Macaulay and to delight in the parliamentary
rhetoric of a Gladstone and a Bright? So runs the familiar
legend. The legend is too simple, and on a par with the
derivation of modern France from the will of a Napoleon,
or the Catholic derivation of Protestantism from the personal
idiosyncrasies of Luther. The Indian national movement
arose from social conditions, from the conditions of imperialism
and its system of exploitation, and from the social and economic
forces generated within Indian society under the conditions
of that exploitation ; the rise of the Indian bourgeoisie and its
growing competition against the domination of the British
bourgeoisie were inevitable, whatever the system of education ;
and if. the Indian bourgeoisie had been educated only in the
Sanscrit Vedas, in monastic seclusion from every other current
of thought, they would have assuredly found in the Sanscrit
Vedas the inspiring principles and slogans of their struggle.

When Macaulay, on behalf of imperialism, imposed the
system of Anglicised education, and defeated the Orientalists,
his object was not to create Indian national consciousness, but
to destroy it down to the very deepest roots of its being, in
much the same spirit as the Tsarist methods of Russification
of the conquered nationalities of the old Russian Empire.
His object was to train up a stratum of docile executants of
the English will, cut off from every line of contact with their
people. Nothing was farther from his thoughts than to
implant the seeds of democracy. On that question his views
were emphatic. It was Macaulay who declared : “ We know
that India cannot have a free government. But she may have
the next best thing — a firm and impartial despotism.” The
fact that this system of education, imposed in the interests of
efficient imperialist administration, opened the avenues at
the same time to the great stream of English democratic and
popular inspiration and struggle, of the Miltons, the Shelleys
and the Byrons — fighting against the selfsame types of tyranny,
and even sometimes against the same figures of the ruling-
class oligarchy, the Pitts and the Hastings and the Welling¬
tons, as were enslaving and exploiting India — was a character¬
istic contradiction of the whole system of imperialism con¬
ducted by the ruling class of a country in which simultaneously
the people were themselves pressing forward to their freedom.

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

272

But this was a contradiction which was not foreseen at the
time, and has never since ceased to be deplored by subsequent
generations of imperialists,1 who have done their best to avert
its consequences by their increasing censorship of books to India.

There is no need to minimise the historical significance and
achievement, for good and for evil, of British rule in India, or
the contribution of that rule, however unwillingly or uncon¬
sciously, to the forces which have gone to mould the Indian
nation. Marx showed, in those passages we have already had
occasion to quote (Chapter IV, 4) , the two main elements of that
achievement, whereby British rule in India, although actuated
by “ the vilest interests ”, nevertheless fulfilled the role of “ the
unconscious tool of history ” in the development of India.

The first and most important achievement of the .British
conquest and exploitation of India was the negative achieve¬
ment, or destructive role — the ruthless destruction of the founda¬
tions of the old order of society in India. Such a destruction
was the necessary precedent to any new advance. It does
not necessarily follow from this that such a destruction would
have been impossible without the British conquest. On the
contrary, there is some reason to judge that the traditional
Indian society in decomposition at the moment of the British
conquest was trembling on the verge of the first stage of the
bourgeois revolution on the basis of its own resources, when the
already matured British bourgeois revolution overtook it in the
phase of disorder and transition and was able to establish its
domination. But in the actual historical record this destruc¬
tion was the achievement of British rule.

The second achievement, less completely carried out, was
the laying of the material basis for the new order by the
political unification of the country, the linking up of India with
the world market, the establishment of modern communica¬
tions, especially the railways and telegraphic system, with the
consequent first beginnings of modern industry and training
of the necessary accompanying personnel with administrative
and scientific qualifications.

1 “ The course and consequences of the measures taken by the British
Government to promote Western education in India have been attentively
studied by the author of this volume. It is a story of grave political mis¬
calculation.”

(Sir Alfred Lyail, G.C.I.E., Introduction to Valentine Chirol’s
“ Indian Unrest ”, 1910, p. xiii.)

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM

273

These achievements could not in themselves bring either
liberation or any improvement in conditions for the mass
of the Indian people. They could only lay the material
premises for both. But “ has the bourgeoisie ever done more?
Has it ever effected a progress without dragging individuals
and people through blood and dirt, through misery and
degradation? ”

The third step still to be achieved, whereby the Indian
people should come into possession of the new forces to
organise them in their own interests, could only be achieved,
as Marx insisted, by the action of the Indian people themselves
in struggle against imperialism and developing their strength
to “ throw off the English yoke altogether ”, This is the
historic task of the Indian national liberation movement,
whose goal of national liberation is the first step to Indian
social liberation.

In the earlier period of British rule, in the first half of the
nineteenth century, the British rulers — in the midst of, and
actually through all the misery and industrial devastation — •
were performing an actively progressive role, were in many
spheres actively combating the conservative and feudal forces
of Indian society. A policy of ruthless annexation was wiping
out the princedoms and filling the remaining rulers with alarm.
This was the period of courageous reforms, of such measures
as the abolition of suttee (carried out with the wholehearted
co-operation of the progressive elements of Indian society)
the abolition of slavery (a more formal measure in practice),
the war on infanticide and thuggism, the introduction 01
Western education and the freeing of the Press. Rigid in
their outlook, unsympathetic to all that was backward in
Indian traditions, convinced that the nineteenth-century
British bourgeois and Christian conception was the norm for
humanity, these early administrators nevertheless carried on
a powerful work of innovation, representing the spirit of the
early ascendant bourgeoisie of the period ; and the best of them,
like Sir Henry Lawrence, won the respect and affection of
those with whom they had to deal. All tradition bears out
the closer personal relations between British and Indians in
that period. The deepest enemies of the British were the old
reactionary rulers who saw in them their supplanters. The
most progressive elements in Indian society at that time.

274 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

represented by Ram Mohun Roy and the reform movement
of the Brahmo Samaj, looked with unconcealed admiration
to the British as the champions of progress, gave unhesitating
support to their reforms, and saw in them the vanguard of a
new civilisation

The rising of 1857 was in its essential character and domi¬
nant leadership the revolt of the old conservative and feudal
forces and dethroned potentates for their rights and privileges
which they saw in process of destruction. This reactionary
character of the rising prevented any wide measure of popular
support and doomed it to failure. Nevertheless, even so the
rising laid bare the depth of mass discontent and unrest
beneath the surface, and created an alarm in the British rulers,
the tradition of which remains. “ All India is at all times
looking out for our downfall ”, Lord Metcalfe, Governor-
General in 1835-36, had written already in the preceding
period (“Papers and Correspondence”, p. 116, quoted in
J. L. Morison, “ Lawrence of Lucknow ”, p. 55). “ The
people everywhere would rejoice, or fancy they would rejoice,
at our destruction. And numbers are not wanting who would
promote it by all means in their power.”

After 1857 a transformation took place in British policy
and the character of British rule. From this point British
policy shifted its centre of gravity increasingly to winning the
support of reaction in India against the masses; while its
relationship to the new progressive forces, who represented
the rising Indian bourgeoisie, passed from the former cordial
closeness to coolness and suspicion, and even hostility,
mitigated only by attempts here also to form temporary
alliances of convenience against the masses. An abrupt end
was made of the system of annexation of the Indian States
into British India. Henceforth the remaining Princes were
zealously preserved in possession of their puppet powers as
allied “ sovereign ” rulers, with every form of degenerate
feudal oppression and misrule protected, and even intensified,
by their now completely parasitic role. The consequent
political map of India was maintained as a senseless patch-
work of petty principalities and divided administrations.
In the most recent period these same Princes, now for
the most part completely corrupt tools of their imperialist
master, have been brought into the forefront of constitutional

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 275

development as makeweights against the forces of national
independence. The path of social reform was no longer
actively pursued, but gave place more and more markedly
to zealous protection of every reactionary religious survival
and custom (the Age of Consent Act of 1891 being almost the
solitary exception in this later period) . The Queen’s Proclama¬
tion of 1858, while making a show of granting racial equality
between Indians and English (with regard to which the sub¬
sequent Viceroy, Lord Lytton, frankly declared that “ these
claims and expectations never can or will be fulfilled ” — see
pages 427-8), emphasised the determination of the Government
to “ abstain from all interference with religious belief or
worship ” and gave the pledge to the conservative forces of
Indian society that “ due regard will be paid to the ancient
rights, usages and customs of India The Royal Titles Act
of 1876, by which the Queen was proclaimed Empress of
India the following year, was declared by the Viceroy,
Lord Lytton, to represent the beginning of “ a new policy by
virtue of which the Crown of England should henceforth be
identified with the hopes, the aspirations, the sympathies
and interests of a powerful native aristocracy From this
period the methods of playing off Hindus and Moslems
against one another, and of utilising other forms of sectional
division, began to be more and more attentively studied, until,
with the modern technique of communal electorates, this
issue has been successfully brought into the forefront of Indian
politics. At the same time an increasing alienation grew up
since 1857 between the British rulers and the progressive ele¬
ments in Indian society ; all tradition on both sides agrees on
the transformation of relations that took place.

Thus the change which developed in the general character
of capitalism in Britain and on the world scale, from its earlier
ascendant progressive period, to a more and more reactionary
and declining role, and finally to full decay in the period of
imperialism, was accompanied by a corresponding change in
the character of British rule in India. With the development
into the final phase of modern imperialism or decaying capital¬
ism this reactionary role has become especially emphasised.

On the other hand, while the objectively progressive role
of the preceding phase of British rule in India was thus coming
to an end in the later decades of the nineteenth century, new

276 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

forces were growing up within Indian society. During the
second half of the nineteenth century the Indian bourgeoisie
was coming to the front. In 1853 the first successful cotton
mill was started in Bombay. By 1880 there were 156 mills
employing 44,000 workers. By 1900 there were 193 mills
employing 161,000 workers. From the outset the new cotton
textile industry was financed and controlled mainly by
Indians ; and it had to make its way against heavy difficulties.
At the same time was appearing the new educated middle
class, trained in the principles of Western education, develop¬
ing as lawyers, doctors, teachers and administrators, and
advancing to the claims of nineteenth-century democratic
conceptions of citizenship. These beginnings, both in the
field of capitalist industry and of the new Westernised in¬
telligentsia, were still relatively small. But the new class was
appearing which was inevitably to find in the British bour¬
geoisie its overshadowing competitor and obstacle to advance,
and was therefore destined to become the first articulate
expression and leadership of Indian national claims.

The basic economic conflict between the new Indian
bourgeoisie and the British bourgeoisie was already revealed
when in 1882 all duties on cotton imports into India were
removed by the Government in response to the demands of the
Lancashire manufacturers against the rising Indian industry.
Three years later the Indian National Congress was formed.

Finally, the growing impoverishment and desperation of
the peasantry, consequent on the cumulative process of
British capitalist penetration, were beginning to reach
serious proportions by the second half of the nineteenth

century, and especially during its last three decades, and
to find expression in mass unrest. It has already been noted
that, while in the first half of the nineteenth century there
were seven famines with an estimated total of i| million
deaths, in the second half of the nineteenth century there were
twenty-four famines with an estimated total of 28J million
deaths, and eighteen of these twenty-four famines fall into the
last quarter of the nineteenth century (Chapter VI, page 132).
The Deccan peasant risings of 1875 were the warning signal
of this growing unrest, and the anxiety of the Government was
revealed in the appointment of the Deccan Riots Commission
in 1875, which conducted an exhaustive enquiry into the whole

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 277

agrarian situation and the causes leading to the unrest, and
of the Famine Commission in 1878.

Thus by the last quarter of the nineteenth century the con¬
ditions were now present, which had not existed in the first
three-quarters, for the beginning of the Indian national
movement.

4. Rise of the National Congress

The Indian National Congress, the premier organisation
and still the leading organisation of the Indian national \
movement, was founded in ,1885.

The story of the origin of the National Congress has often
been used to substantiate the claim of British imperialism to
be the foster-parent of Indian Nationalism. In fact, however,
the story of this origin, and the contradiction of its subsequent
history, afford a very striking demonstration of the strength of
the forces of Indian Nationalism and of the inevitable growth
of the struggle against imperialism.

As is well known, the National Congress, while arising from
the preceding development and beginnings of activity of the
Indian middle class, was brought into existence as an organisa¬
tion through the initiative and under the guidance of an 1
Englishman. More than that — what is less universally known
— the National Congress was in fact brought into being through
the initiative and under the guidance of direct British govern¬
mental policy, on a plan secretly pre-arranged with the
Viceroy, as an intended weapon for safeguarding British rule
against the rising forces of popular unrest and anti-British feeling.

Yet no sooner had the legal existence of a national organisa¬
tion, within whatever limited original intended bounds, been
thus authorised, than its inevitable tendency as a focus of
national feeling began to assert itself. From its early years,
even if at first in very limited and cautious forms, the national
character began to overshadow the loyalist character. Within
a few years it was being regarded with suspicion and hostility
by the Government as a centre of “ sedition ”. The sub¬
sequent developing mass movement of national struggle
swept it forward, already in a first preliminary stage before
the war of 1914, and still more decisively after it, to the plane
of far-reaching mass struggle, vowing the aim of complete
national independence, while the Government proclaimed it

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

278

illegal and sought to suppress it. To-day the National Congress
is the main focus of the organised millions of the national
movement, and is widely seen as the alternative claimant to
power in succession to British rule.

This history and development, defeating all the original
claims of imperialism, is a testimony to the sweeping advance
of the forces of the national movement and to the impossi¬
bility of confining those forces within the narrow channels
which imperialism would have sought to mark out for them.

The origins of Indian Nationalism are commonly traced to
the foundation of the National Congress in 1885. In fact,
however, the precursors of the movement can be traced
through the preceding half-century.1 Reference has already
been made to the reform movement which found expression
in the Brahmo Samaj, established in 1828. In 1843 was
founded the British India Society in Bengal, which sought to
“ secure the welfare, extend the just rights and advance the
interests of all classes of our fellow subjects ”. In 1851 this
was merged into the British Indian Association, which in the
following year presented a Petition to the British Parliament,
declaring that “ they cannot but feel that they have not
profited by their connection with Great Britain to the extent
which they had a right to expect ”, setting forth grievances
with regard to the revenue system, the discouragement of
manufactures, education and the question of admission to the
higher administrative services, and demanding a Legislative
Council “ possessing a popular character so as in some re¬
spects to represent the sentiments of the people ”. These
earlier associations were still mainly linked up with the
landowning interests ; and indeed the merger by which the
British Indian Association was formed included the Bengal
Landholders’ Society. In 1875 the Indian Association,
founded by Surendra Nath Banerjea, was the first organisation
representative of the educated middle class in opposition to the
domination of the big landowners. Branches, both of the more
reactionary British Indian Association and of the more
progressive Indian Association, were founded in various parts
of India. In 1883 the Indian Association of Calcutta called

1 A fuller account of these precursors and early stages of the national
movement will be found in C. F. Andrews and G. Mookeijee, “ The Rise
and Growth of the Congress in India ”, 1938.

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 279

the first All-India National Conference, which was attended
by representatives from Bengal, Madras, Bombay and the
United Provinces. The National Conference of 1883 was
held under the presidency of Ananda Mohan Bose, who
later became President of the National Congress in 1898;
in his opening address he declared the Conference to be the
first stage to a National Parliament. Thus the conception of
an Indian National Congress had already been formed and was
maturing from the initiative and activity of the Indian repre¬
sentatives themselves when the Government intervened to take a
hand. The Government did not found a movement which had
no previous existence or basis. The Government stepped in to
take charge of a movement which was in any case coming into
existence and whose development it foresaw was inevitable.

The formation of the National Congress represented from
the point of view of the Government an attempt to defeat,
or rather forestall, an impending revolution. The documents
and memoirs available already prove this, although a complete
account must await the opening of archives which are still
secret and likely to be held secret until a change of regime.

The official founder of the National Congress was an English
administrator, A. O. Hume, who had been in Government
service until 1882, when he retired and took up the work of
the formation of the Congress. Hume in his official capacity
had received possession of the very voluminous secret police
reports which revealed the growth of popular discontent and
the spreading of underground conspiratorial organisation.
The period of the seventies was a period of heavy famines and
distress, and the growing unrest had been demonstrated in the
Deccan peasant risings. The disastrous famine of 1877
coincided with the costly durbar, at which Queen Victoria
was proclaimed Empress of India, and with the Second Afghan
War. Unrest was met by repression. The freedom of the
Press was removed by the Vernacular Press Act of 1878.
In the following year the Arms Act left the villagers without
even the means of defence against the raids of wild animals.
The right of public meeting was cut down. The biographer of
Hume writes :

“ These ill-starred measures of reaction, combined with

Russian methods of police repression, brought India under

Lord Lytton within measurable distance of a revolutionary

28o

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

outbreak, and it was only in time that Mr. Hume and his
Indian advisers were inspired to intervene.”

(Sir William Wedderburn : “ Allan Octavian Hume,
Father of the Indian National Congress”, igi3,p. ioi.)
Sir William Wedderburn further explains the purpose of his
intervention :

“ Towards the close of Lord Lytton’s viceroyalty, that is,
about 1878 and 1879, Mr. Hume became convinced that
some definite action was called for to counteract the growing
unrest. From well-wishers in different parts of the country
he received warnings of the danger to the Government, and
to the future welfare of India, from the economic suffering
of the masses and the alienation of the intellectuals.”

{Ibid., p. 50.)

The measures of repression preceded the foundation of the
Congress with official blessing. The two processes were not
contradictory, but complementary. It was not until the
potential revoludonary movement had been struck down that
the way was judged open for the formadon of a legal move¬
ment under docile leadership as the next step to “ counteract
the growing unrest This double or alternating method of
repression and conciliadon, of seeking to strike down the
stubborn fighters and make an alliance with the “ loyalist ”
moderates, is the familiar dialectic of imperialist statesman¬
ship, destined to be many times repeated in the ensuing period.

What was the nature of the evidence which brought Hume
to the conclusion that, as he wrote, “ I could not then, and
do not now, entertain a shadow of doubt that we were then
truly in extreme danger of a most terrible revolution”?
The evidence may be usefully given in his own words as
expressed in a memorandum found among his papers :
(the textual passages of the memorandum are given as quoted
by his biographer, Sir William Wedderburn; the other
passages are as summarised by his biographer) :

“ ‘ The evidence convinced me at the time — about fifteen
months I think before Lord Lytton left — that we were in
imminent danger of a terrible outbreak. I was shown seven
large volumes (corresponding to a certain mode of dividing
the country, excluding Burma, Assam and some minor
tracts) containing a vast number of entries; English

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM

28l

abstracts or translations — longer or shorter — of vernacular
reports or communications of one kind or another, all
arranged according to districts, sub-districts, sub-divisions,
and the cities, towns and villages included in these. The
number of these entries was enormous ; there were said at
the time to be communications from over thirty thousand
different reporters.’ Many of the entries reported con¬
versations between men of the lowest classes, ‘ all going to
show that these poor men were pervaded with a sense of the
hopelessness of the existing state of affairs, that they were
convinced that they would starve and die, and that they
wanted to do something. They were going to do something,
and stand by each other, and that something meant violence .’
Innumerable entries referred to the secretion of old swords,
spears and matchlocks, which would be ready when re¬
quired. It was not supposed that the immediate result in
its initial stages would be a revolt against our Government, or
a revolt at all in the proper sense of the word. What was pre¬
dicted was a sudden violent outbreak of sporadic crimes,
murders of obnoxious persons, robbery of bankers, looting
of bazaars. ‘ In the existing state of the lowest half-
starving classes, it was considered that the first few crimes
would be the signal for hundreds of similar ones, and for a
general development of lawlessness, paralysing the authori¬
ties and the respectable classes. It was considered also that
everywhere the small bands would begin to coalesce into
large ones, like drops of water on a leaf; that all the bad
characters in the country would join, and that very soon
after the bands obtained formidable proportions, a certain
small number of the educated classes, at the time des¬
perately, perhaps unreasonably, bitter against the Government
would join the movement, assume here and there the lead,
give the outbreak cohesionand direct it as a national revolt.’”

(Sir William Wedderburn, op. cit., pp. 80-81.)
Hume established contact with the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin,
an experienced politician, in the early part of 1885, to place
the situation before him. It was at this interview, in the head¬
quarters of imperialism at Simla, that the plan of the Indian
National Congress was hatched. The first President of the
Congress, W. C. Bonnerjee, has published his account of this
origin :

282

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

“ It will probably be news to many that the Indian
National Congress, as it was originally started and as it has
since been carried on, is in reality the work of the Marquis
of Dufferin and Ava, when that nobleman was the Governor-
General of India. Mr. A. O. Hume, C.B., had in 1884
conceived the idea that it would be of great advantage to
the country if leading politicians could be brought together
once a year to discuss social matters and be upon friendly
footing with one another. He did not desire that politics
should form part of their discussion. . . .

“ Lord Dufferin took great interest in the matter, and
after considering it for some time he sent for Mr. Hume
and told him that in his opinion Mr. Hume’s project would
not be of much use. He said there was no body of persons
in this country who performed the functions which Her
Majesty’s Opposition did in England. ... It would be
very desirable in their interests as well as the interests of the
ruled that Indian politicians should meet yearly andpointout
to the Government in what respects the administration was
defective and how it could be improved, and he added
that an assembly such as he proposed should not be presided
over by the Local Governor, for in his presence the
people might not like to speak out their minds. Mr. Hume
was convinced by Lord Dufferin’s arguments, and when
he placed the two schemes, his own and Lord Dufferin’s,
before leading politicians in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and
other parts of the country, the latter unanimously accepted
Lord Dufferin’s scheme and proceeded to give effect to it.
Lord Dufferin had made it a condition with Mr. Hume that
his name should not be divulged so long as he remained in
the country.”

(W. G. Bonneijee, “ Introduction to Indian Politics ”,
1898.)

The traditional policy of liberal imperialism is here clearly
expressed. Similarly the more recent historians of the early
national movement have described the episode :

“ The years just before the Congress were among the most
dangerous since 1857. It was Hume, among English
officials, who saw the impending disaster and tried to
prevent it. . . . He went to Simla in order to make clear

THE RISE OF INDIAN NATIONALISM 283

to the authorities how almost desperate the situation had
become. It is probable that his visit made the new Viceroy,
who was a brilliant man of affairs, realise the gravity of the
situation and encourage Hume to go on with the formation
of the Congress. The time was fully ripe for this All-India
movement. In place of an agrarian revolt, which would
have had the sympathy and support of the educated classes,
it gave the rising classes a national platform from which to
create a New India. It was all to the good in the long
run that a revolutionary situation based on violence was
not allowed to be created once again.”

(Andrews and Mookerjee, “ Rise and Growth of the
Congress in India ”, pp. 128-9.)

It will be seen that the official role of the National Congress
as the organ of opposition to “ a revolutionary situation based
on violence ” by no means dates from Gandhi ; this principle
was implanted in it by imperialism at the outset as its intended
official role.

Hume’s own conception of the role of the Congress may here
be quoted :

“ A safety-valve for the escape of great and growing
forces, generated by our own action, was urgently needed
and no more efficacious safety-valve than our Congress
movement could possibly be devised ”.

(Wedderburn, op. cit., p. 77.)
Lord Dufferin’s aim to build up through the Congress a
basis of support for the Government, by separating the
“ loyalist ” elements from the “ extremists ”, was very clearly
set out in his speech on the demands of the educated classes in
1886, the year following the foundation of the Congress:

“ India is not a country in which the machinery of
European democratic agitation can be applied with im¬
punity. My own inclination would be to examine carefully
and seriously the demands which are the outcome of these
various movements, to give quickly and with a good grace
whatever it may be possible or desirable to accord, to
announce that these concessions must be accepted as a
final settlement of the Indian system for the next ten or
fifteen years ; and to forbid mass meetings and incendiary
speechifying.

284 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT - 1

“ Putting aside the demands of the extremists . . . the
objects even of the more advanced party are neither very
dangerous nor very extravagant. . . . Amongst the natives
I have met there are a considerable number who are both
able and sensible, and upon whose loyal co-operation one
could undoubtedly rely. The fact of their supporting the
government would popularise many of its acts which now
have the appearance of being driven through the legislature
by force ; and if they in their turn had a native party behind
them, the government of India would cease to stand up, as
it does now, an isolated rock in the middle of a tempestuous
sea, around whose base the breakers dash themselves simul¬
taneously from all the four quarters of the heavens.”

(Sir Alfred Lyall : “ Life of the Marquis of Dufferin
and Ava ”, Vol. II, pp. 151-2.)

The calculation is here perfectly clear. And in the im¬
mediate outcome it looked at first as if it would be fully
successful. The First Congress was most dutiful to imperial¬
ism; its nine resolutions cover only detail administrative
reform suggestions ; the nearest approach to a national demo¬
cratic demand was the request for the admission of some
elected members to the Legislative Councils. Mr. Hume’s
successful conduct of his flock was demonstrated in the closing
episode recorded in the official report of the First Congress:

“ Mr. Hume, after acknowledging the honour done him,
said that, as the giving of cheers had been entrusted to him,
he must be allowed to propose — on the principle of better
late than never — giving of cheers, and that not only three,
but three times three, and if possible thrice that, for one
the latchet of whose shoes he was unworthy to loose, one to
whom they were all dear, to whom they were all as children
— need he say, Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen-
Empress.

“ The rest of the speaker’s remarks was lost in the storm
of applause that instantly burst out, and the asked-for cheers
were given over and over.”

It is a far cry from this servile beginning (the lowest depths,
however, it will be noted of servility came, not from the
Orientals, but from the Englishman) to the time when the
Congress was a proscribed organisation, hunted down by the

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 285

Government, and enlisting the devotion of millions of Indian
fighters for freedom.

This twofold character of the National Congress in its
origin is very important for all its subsequent history. This
double strand in its role and being runs right through its
history: on the one hand, the strand of co-operation with
imperialism against the “ menace ” of the mass movement;
on the other hand, the strand of leadership of the masses in the
national struggle. This twofold character, which can be
traced through all the contradictions of its leadership, from
Gokhale in the old stage to his disciple, Gandhi, in the new
(the differences between these two deriving mainly from the
difference of stage of the mass movement and consequent
necessity of different tactics), is the reflection of the twofold
or vacillating role of the Indian bourgeoisie, at once in conflict
with the British bourgeoisie and desiring to lead the Indian
people, yet fearing that “ too rapid ” advance may end in
destroying its privileges along with those of the imperialists.
This contradiction can only be finally solved in proportion as
the national movement builds itself fully and completely on
the masses and their interests in opposition to imperialism
and to all those privileged interests which seek co-operation
with imperialism.

Chapter XII : THREE STAGES OF
NATIONAL STRUGGLE

“ I am sorry to say that if no instructions had been addressed in political
crises to the people of this country except to remember to hate violence, to
love order and to exercise patience, the liberties of this country would never
have been obtained.” — William Ewart Gladstone.

The development of Indian Nationalism over half a
century would require a separate study for any adequate treat¬
ment, since it comprises the entire political history of a people
passing through the most critical stages of their struggle for
national unity and freedom. For the immediate purposes,
however, of throwing light on the present political situation,

286 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

what is most important is to see sharply the outstanding land¬
marks of that development and the main successive tendencies
which have played their part and helped to build up the
character of the present movement.

The historical development of Indian Nationalism is marked
by three great waves of struggle, each at a successively higher
level, and each leaving its permanent marks on the movement
and opening the way to a new phase. In its earliest phase
Indian Nationalism, as we have seen, reflected only the big
bourgeoisie — the progressive elements among the landowners,
the new industrial bourgeoisie and the well-to-do intellectual
elements. The first great wave of unrest which disturbed
these placid waters, in the period preceding 1914, reflected the
discontent of the urban petty bourgeoisie, but did not yet reach
the masses. The role of the masses in the national movement,
alike of the peasantry and of the new force of the industrial
working class, emerged only after the war of 1914-18. Two
great waves of mass struggle developed, the first in the years im¬
mediately succeeding the war, the second in the years succeed¬
ing the world economic crisis. On the basis of this record of
struggle, Indian Nationalism stands to-day at its highest point
of strength since its inception. The National Congress, follow¬
ing its sweeping election victory of 1 937 and its period of control
of the Ministries in the majority of the provinces, has reached,
with its five million members, a decisive representative
position, and now faces the most critical responsibilities of

leadership. Once again to-day the national movement
stands at the parting of the ways. It is evident to all observers
that a great new period of struggle, which may prove decisive
for the fate of British rule in India and for tbe future of the
Indian people, is now opening. In relation to the problems
of this present situation a rapid survey may be taken of these
previous stages of struggle and their lessons.

1. The First Great Wave of Struggle 1905-1910

For twenty years the National Congress developed along
the path laid down by its founders. During these twenty
years no basic claim for self-government in any form — that
is, no basic national claim — was formulated in its resolutions,
but only the demand for a greater degree of Indian repre¬
sentation within the British system of rule. The maximum

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 287

demand was for representative institutions, not yet for self-
government. The outlook of the early moderate leaders may
be found expressed in the statement of one of the ablest — and
most moderate — of their number, Romesh Chandra Dutt,
President of the Congress in 1890, who formulated the demand
of “ the people of India ” in the following terms in 1901 :

“ The people of India are not fond of sudden changes and
revolutions. They do not ask for new constitutions, issuing
like armed Minervas from the heads of legislative Jupiters.
They prefer to work on lines which have already been laid
down. They desire to strengthen the present Government,
and to bring it more in touch with the people. They desire
to see some Indian members in the Secretary of State’s
Council, and in the Viceroy’s Executive Council, represent¬
ing Indian agriculture and industries. They wish to see
Indian members in an Executive Council for each Province.
They wish to represent the interests of the Indian people in
the discussion of every important administrative question.
They seek that the administration of the Empire and its
great provinces should be conducted with the co-operation
of the people.

“ There is a Legislative Council in each large Indian
Province, and some of the members of these Councils are
elected under the Act of 1892. The experiment has proved
a success, and some expansion of these Legislative Councils
would strengthen administration and bring it more in touch
with the people. ... A Province with thirty districts and
a population of thirty millions may fairly have thirty elected
members on its Legislative Council. Each District should feel
that it has some voice in the administration of the Province.”

(Romesh Chandra Dutt, 1901 Preface to “ The
Economic History of India ”, Vol. I, “ India Under
Early British Rule ”, p. xviii.)

The moderation of these demands correctly reflected the
position of the early Indian bourgeoisie. The Congress of those
days was exclusively representative of the upper bourgeoisie,
and especially of its ideological representatives, the educated
middle class. While it won an enthusiastic and wide response
from these circles from the outset, so much so that measures
had to be taken from an early date to restrict the number of

288

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

delegates, that response was entirely confined to these social '
elements. “ The four thousand gentlemen sitting round me ”,
wrote an English Member of Parliament, W. S. Caine, who
attended the 1889 Congress, “ are picked men of the legal,
medical, engineering and literary professions all over India.”
The early moderate leaders were well aware that they did not
represent the masses, and that, while they might endeavour
to speak as interpreters in the name of the people, they could
not claim to speak as its voice. “ The Congress ”, declared
Sir Pherozes'hah Mehta, the principal guiding leader of the
Congress in its earlier years, “ was indeed not the voice of the
masses, but it was the duty of their educated compatriots to
interpret their grievances and offer suggestions for their redress.”

The early Indian bourgeoisie of that time understood very
well that they were in no position to challenge British rule. On
the contrary, they looked to British rule as their ally. For them
the main enemy was not British rule as such, but the backward¬
ness of the people, the lack of modern development of the
country, the strength of the forces of obscurantism and ignor¬
ance, and the administrative shortcomings of the “ bureau¬
cratic ” system responsible for the situation. In their fight
against these evils they looked hopefully for the co-operation
of the British rulers. “ The educated classes ”, declared
Ananda Mohan Bose, President of the 1898 Congress, “ are
the friends and not the foes of England — her natural and
necessary allies in the great work that lies before her.” “ I
have no fears ”, affirmed Sir Pherozeshah Mehta in 1890, “ but
that British statesmen will ultimately respond to the Call.”
Dadabhai Naoroji, the Father of the Congress, when presiding
over the Second Congress, appealed to the British rulers “ not
to drive this force (the educated Indians) into opposition
instead of drawing it to your side ”. Surendra Nath Banerjea,
the “silver-tongued orator” of the older Congress leaders, 1
proclaimed the ideal to “ work with unwavering loyalty to
the British connection — for the object was not the supersession
of British rule in India, but the broadening of its basis, the
liberalising of its spirit, the ennobling of its character and placing
it on the unchangeable foundation of a nation’s affections ”.1

1 The touch of irony in the lavish encomia of British institutions customary
with these older Congress leaders should not be missed. Thus it wai,
Surendra Nath Banerjea who declared at the 1802 Congress: “We are

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 289

It should not be assumed from the tone of these declarations
that these early Congress leaders were reactionary anti¬
national servants of alien rule. On the contrary, they repre¬
sented at that time the most progressive force in Indian society.
So long as the nascent working class was still completely with¬
out expression or organisation, and the peasants were still the
dumb millions, the Indian bourgeoisie was the most progressive
and objectively revolutionary force in India. They carried
on work for social reform, for enlightenment, for education
and modernisation against all that was backward and obscur¬
antist in India. They pressed the demand for industrial and
technical economic development.

But their faith and hope in British imperialism as their ally
in this work were doomed to disappointment. British im¬
perialism understood very clearly — more clearly than they did
themselves — the significance of this progressive role, and the
inevitable conflict that it would mean with the interests of
imperialist rule and exploitation. Therefore from an early
period the original patronage of the Congress turned to sus¬
picion and hostility. Within three years of its foundation, the
Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, its original inspirer, was speaking with
contempt' for the “ microscopic minority ” represented by the
Congress. In 1887, Mrs. Besant relates in her book “ How
India Wrought for Freedom ”, a delegate attended the Con¬
gress “ in defiance of his district officer and was called on to
give a security of Rs. 20,000 to keep the peace ”. In 1890 the
Government issued a circular forbidding Government officials
to attend the Congress even as visitors. In 1900 Lord Curzon
wrote in a letter to the Secretary of State : “ The Congress is
tottering to its fall, and one of my great ambitions while in
India is to assist it to a peaceful demise ” (Ronaldshay, “ Life
of Lord Curzon ”, Vol. II, p. 151).

Frustration of their hopes in British imperialism was con¬
sequently the fate of the older school of Indian Nationalism.
In his last years Gokhale, the veteran leader of the Moderates,
bitterly complained that “ the bureaucracy was growing
frankly selfish and openly hostile to National aspirations. It

the citizens of a great and free Empire and we live under the protecting
shadow of one of the noblest constitutions the world has ever seen. The
rights of Englishmen are ours, their privileges are ours, their constitution
is ours. But we are excluded from them.”

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

290

was not so in the past ” (Official “ History of the Indian
National Congress ”, 1935, p. 151).

As the failure of the old policy became clear, it was inevitable
that a new school should arise, criticising the “ Old Guard ”,
and demanding a more positive programme and policy which
should represent a definite breaking of the ties with im¬
perialism. This new school, associated especially with the
leadership of B. G. Tilak, came to the front already in the last
decade of the nineteenth century, but was not able to play a
decisive role until the situation became ripe in the following
decade. Alongside Tilak, whose base was in Maharashtra in
the Bombay Presidency, where the agrarian revolt had been
most marked in the seventies, the best known of the newer
leaders were Bepin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghose in
Bengal, and Lajpat Rai in the Punjab.

The new school termed themselves “ Nationalists ”, also
“ Integral Nationalists ” and “ Orthodox Nationalists ”, and
came to be widely known as “ Extremists ” in opposition to
the “ Moderates ”. It would be a mistake to regard these
terms as the expression of a simple difference between a radical
left wing and a conservative-minded right wing. In fact the
situation bore a contradictory character, which reflected the
still immature development of the national movement.

The starting-point of the opposition leadership, as against
the Old Guard, was undoubtedly the desire to make a break
with compromising policies of conciliation with imperialism*
and to enter on a path of decisive and uncompromising
struggle against imperialism. To this extent they represented
a force of advance. But this desire was still a subjective desire
on their part. There was no basis yet of the mass movement
to make such a decisive struggle possible. Their appeal
reached to the discontented lower middle class and to the
hearts of the literate youth, especially to the poorer students
and the new growing army of unemployed or poorly paid
intellectuals, whose situation was becoming increasingly des¬
perate in the opening years of the twentieth century, as it
became manifest that there was no avenue of advance or ful¬
filment for them under imperialist conditions, and who were
little inclined to be patient with the slow and comfortable
doctrines of gradual advance preached by the solidly estab¬
lished upper-class leaders. Such elements can provide, in

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE

29I

periods of social transition and the impending break-up of an
old order, very considerable dynamic forces of unrest and
energy for struggle ; but they are by the nature of their situa¬
tion incapable of realising their aspirations, until they find
their role in relationship to the mass movement, and can only
seek satisfaction either in exalted verbal protest, or in anarchist
individualist and ultimately politically ineffective forms of
action.

Had the new leaders been equipped with a modern social
and political outlook, they would have understood that their
main task and the task of their supporters lay in the develop¬
ment of the organisation of the working class and of the mass
of the peasantry on the basis of their social, economic and
political struggle for liberation. But to have demanded such
an understanding in the conditions of the first decade of the
twentieth century in India would have been to demand an
understanding in advance of the existing stage of social
development.

Cut off from any scientific social and political theory, the
new leaders sought to find the secret of the compromising in¬
effectiveness of the Moderate leaders in their “ denationalised ”
“ Westernising ” tendencies, and concentrated their attack
against these tendencies. Thus they fixed their attack against
precisely those tendencies in respect of which the older
Moderate leaders were progressive. Against these, they
sought to build the national movement on the basis of the still
massive forces of social conservatism in India, on the basis of
Orthodox Hinduism and the affirmation of the supposed
spiritual superiority of the ancient Hindu or “ Aryan ” civil¬
isation to modern “ Western ” civilisation. They sought to
build the national movement, the most advanced movement
in India, on the basis of the most antiquated religion and
religious superstitions. From this era dates the disastrous
combination of political radicalism and social reaction in
India, which has had such a maleficent influence on the
fortunes of the national movement, and whose traces are still
far from overcome.

The alliance of radical nationalism with the most reactionary
forces of Orthodox Hinduism was signalised by Tilak when he
opened his campaign in 1890 with a fight against the Age of
Consent Bill, which sought to raise the age of consummation

2g2 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

of marriage for girls from ten years to twelve years. This Bill
was supported by Ranade and the older progressive national
leaders. Tilak led a ferocious campaign against it, voicing
the demands of the most reactionary forces of Hinduism.
Later, he organised the “ Cow Protection Society ” (the
sacredness of the cow, according to the principles of Hinduism,
while originally explicable, like all religious observances, by
the social needs of the period when the tenet arose, is to-day
economically reactionary by its encouragement of useless live¬
stock, leading to deterioration of livestock, and is also a
dangerous source of friction with Moslems, who eat beef).
National festivals were organised, not only in honour of Shivaji,
the national hero of the Mahrattas, but equally in a religious
form in honour of the elephant-headed god, Ganesh. In
Bengal the cult of Kali, the goddess of destruction, was
actively developed by some of the more ardent groups.

It is necessary to recognise the national patriotic purpose
which underlay these religious forms. Beneath the protection
of the religious cover widespread national agitation was con¬
ducted, through annual festivals and mass gatherings, an
organisation was developed, with the formation of leagues
under religious titles and gymnastic societies of the youth.
Under conditions of severe imperialist repression of all direct
political agitation and organisation, before the national move¬
ment had reached any mass basis, the use of such forms was
justifiable. It was not a question, however, only of the formal
cover, or of the historical form of growth, of a political move¬
ment. The insistence on orthodox religion as the heart of the
national movement, and the proclamation of the supposed
spiritual superiority of the ancient Hindu civilisation to modern

“ Western ” civilisation (what modern psychologists would no
doubt term a compensatory delusion), inevitably retarded and
weakened the real advance of the national movement and of
political consciousness, while the emphasis on Hinduism must
bear a share of the responsibility for the alienation of wide
sections of Moslem opinion from the national movement.

These conceptions are so important for the subsequent
development of Indian Nationalism — for they reappear during
the modern period in a more refined form in Gandhism — that
it is worth while to analyse them with some care. For these con¬
ceptions are the expression of the belief that the path to Indian

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 293

| development and freedom lies, not along the line of social de¬
velopment, of overcoming old weaknesses and divisions and
harmful traditions, but along the line of social retrogression, of
stimulating and reviving the outlooks and relics of the past.

How this outlook arose we have seen. ■> The Orthodox
Nationalists saw the old upper-class Moderate leaders satur¬
ated with the “ denationalised ” outlook and methods, learn¬
ing, social life and politics of the British bourgeoisie. Against
this “ de-nationalisation ” or capitulation to British culture
they sought to lead a revolt. But on what basis could they
lead a revolt?

They were themselves, in fact, tied to the narrow range of
the bourgeois outlook (socialism had not yet in practice made
any contact with Indian political life at that time), and
hence could not see with critical understanding the workings
of capitalism alike on its positive side and its negative side.
In consequence they could not see that the so-called “ British ”
culture they were denouncing was in reality the culture of
capitalism; that the national movement, in so far as it was
led by the bourgeoisie, could not yet transcend that basis ; and
that the only final progressive opposition to that culture could
come from the working class. They could not, op the basis
of experience then in India, have any conception of the rising
working-class outlook and culture which alone can be the
alternative and successor to bourgeois culture, going beyond it,
taking what is of value and leaving the rest. Therefore, when
they came to look for a firm ground of opposition to the con¬
queror’s culture, they could only find for a basis the pre¬
capitalist culture of India before the conquest.

So from the existing foul welter of decaying and corrupt
metaphysics, from the broken relics of the shattered village
system, from the dead remains of court splendours of a
vanished civilisation, they sought to fabricate and build up
and reconstitute a golden dream of Hindu culture — a
“ purified ” Hindu culture — which they could hold up as an
ideal and a guiding light.

Against the overwhelming flood of British bourgeois culture
and ideology, which they saw completely conquering the
Indian bourgeoisie and intelligentsia, they sought to hold for¬
ward the feeble shield of a reconstructed Hindu ideology which
had no longer any natural basis for its existence in actual life

294 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

conditions. All social and scientific development was con¬
demned by the more extreme devotees of this gospel as the
conquerors’ culture : every form of antiquated tradition, even
abuse, privilege and obscurantism, was treated with respect
and veneration.

So it came about that these militant national leaders of the
people, devoted and fearless as many of them were, who should
have been leading the people forward along the path of
emancipation and understanding, away from all the evil relics
of the past, appeared instead in practice as the champions of
social reaction and superstition, of caste division and privilege,
as the allies of all the “ black ” forces, seeking to hold down
the antiquated pre-British social and ideological fetters upon
the people in the name of a high-flown mystical “ national ”
appeal.

The Orthodox Nationalists believed that in this way they
were building up a mass national movement of opposition to
imperialism. Only so can be explained that a man of the
intellectual calibre of Tilak should have lent himself to such
agitations as his campaign in defence of child-marriage or his
Cow Protection Society.

But this policy was, in fact, not only vicious in principle, but
mistaken in tactics. It not only inevitably weakened the
advance of the political consciousness and clarity of the move¬
ment (nearly all the best-known leaders of Extremism moved
later in varying degree to co-operation with imperialism, or
to speculative abstraction from politics, and found themselves
out of sympathy with the subsequent advance of the move¬
ment), but also divided the advancing forces. The programme
of social reaction alienated many who would have been ready
to support a more militant national policy, but were too clear¬
sighted to accept the reactionary and metaphysical rubbish
which was being offered as a substitute for a left-wing pro¬
gramme. This division, tearing at the hearts of many of the
best elements, was illustrated in the case of Motilal Nehru, a
man of strong character, who was one of the leaders of the
Moderates in the fight against the Extremists, and of whom
his son writes :

“ A man of strong feelings, strong passions, tremendous
pride and great strength of will, he was very far from the
moderate type. And yet in 1907 and 1908 and for some

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 295

years afterwards he was undoubtedly a moderate of the
Moderates and he was bitter against the Extremists, though
I believe he admired Tilak.

“ Why was this so ? . . . His clear thinking led him to see
that hard and extreme words lead nowhere unless they are
followed by action appropriate to the language. He saw
no effective action in prospect. . . . And then the back¬
ground of these movements was a religious nationalism
which was alien to his nature. He did not look back to a
revival in India of ancient times. He had no sympathy or
understanding of them, and utterly disliked many old social
customs, caste and the like, which he considered reactionary.
He looked to the West and felt greatly attracted by Western
progress, and thought that this could come through an
association with England.

“ Socially speaking, the revival of Indian nationalism in
1907 was definitely reactionary.”

(Jawaharlal Nehru, “ Autobiography ”, pp. 23 -4.)

In the practical struggle the Orthodox Nationalists, while
building on this religious basis for their argument, could
derive no weapon or plan of action therefrom save the uni¬
versal weapon of desperate, but impotent, petty-bourgeois
elements divorced from any mass movement — -individual
terrorism. Even here the fruits of the very vague general
religious incitation and exaltation, and formation of secret
societies, were very meagre (despite the noisy outcry and
publicity given to them by the horrified imperialist rulers,
whose own methods of mass-extermination, as later im¬
pressively illustrated at Amritsar, were far more formidable),
and played no part of importance until later the ripening of
the situation for a new stage of struggle brought also this aspect
to the front as an accompaniment.

When by 1905 the situation was ripe for a new stage of
struggle, the main weapon which was found was one which
was remote from all the previous religious and metaphysical
speculations and bore an essentially modern and economic
character — the weapon of the economic boycott. In the
choice of this weapon, which was the only possible effective
weapon at the time, was expressed the bourgeois character of
the movement ; and indeed support of this weapon was
taken up by the Moderate leaders.

296 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

The forces which gathered for a new stage of struggle in
1905 reflected the wave of world advance at that time following
the defeat of Tsarism by Japan (the first victory in modern
times of an Asiatic over a European Power having its own
profound repercussions in India) and the initial victories
of the First Russian Revolution. The immediate issue which
precipitated the struggle in India was the Partition of Bengal,
then the centre of political advance in India, a plan devised
by Lord Curzon and carried out under his successor. Against
this Partition, which aroused universal indignation, the
boycott of foreign goods was proclaimed on August 7, 1905.

A rapid swing forward of the national movement followed.
The 1905 session of the Congress still gave only conditional
support to the boycott. But the Calcutta Congress in 1906,
strongly under the influence of the Extremists, adopted
a complete new programme, sponsored by the old Father of
the Congress himself, Dadabhai Naoroji. This programme
proclaimed for the first time the aim of Swaraj or Self-
Government, defined as colonial self-government within the
Empire (“ the system of government obtaining in the self-
governing British colonies ”), support of the boycott move¬
ment, support of “ Swadeshi ” or the promotion of indigenous
industries, and National Education. Swaraj, Boycott,
Swadeshi and National Education became now the four
cardinal points of the Congress programme.

A year later, in 1907, the Surat Congress saw a split between
the Moderates, led by Gokhale, and the Extremists, led by
Tilak. There is no doubt, on the evidence of an episode
which long remained a controversial issue, that the Moderate
leaders, fearing the growing influence of the Extremists,
manoeuvred in a high-handed fashion to force the split.
Thereafter the two sections developed in separation until the
reunion in 1916; in 1918 the Moderates finally left the
Congress to form the Liberal Federation.

The hand of Government repression rapidly followed the
new awakening of the movement. In 1907 was passed the
Seditious Meetings Act, and a new and drastic Press Act
followed in 1910 (the previous Press Act of 1878 had been
repealed under the liberal administration of Lord Ripon in
1882). On the basis of a regulation of 1818 the method of de¬
portation without trial was brought into play against the

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 297

Extremist leaders. All this took place under the “Liberal”
Lord Morley as Secretary for India. In 1908 Tilak, the man
whom the Government most feared, was sentenced to six
years’ imprisonment for an article published in his newspaper,
and was held in prison in Mandalay until the month before
the outbreak of the war of 1914. The arrest of Tilak led to a
general strike of the Bombay textile workers — the first political
action of the Indian proletariat, and hailed by Lenin at the
time as a portent of the future. Most of the other prominent
leaders were either sentenced or deported, or passed into exile
to escape sentence. Between 1906 and 1909 there were 550
political cases before the courts in Bengal alone. Police action
was carried out with great rigour ; meetings were broken up ;
agrarian riots were ruthlessly suppressed in the Punjab ;
school-children were arrested for singing national songs.

As in the previous period, repression was followed and
accompanied by concessions to “ rally the Moderates
The very limited Morley-Minto Reforms in 1909 gave a
grudging extension to the system of representation initiated
in the Indian Councils Act of 1892, by permitting a minority
of indirectly elected members in the Central Legislative
Council, and a majority of indirectly elected members in the
Provincial Councils; the Councils were advisory bodies and
had no effective powers. The Moderate leaders, now in
sole control of the Congress, seized the occasion of these Re¬
forms to proclaim their unity with the Government ; the new
Viceroy, arriving in 1910, was received with a loyal Address;
and when in 191 1 the revision of the Partition of Bengal was an¬
nounced in a Royal Proclamation, the spokesman of the Congress
declared that “ every heart is beating in unison with reverence
and devotion to the British Throne, overflowing with revived
confidence in and gratitude towards British statesmanship
The revision of the Partition of Bengal in 19 n represented
a partial victory of the boycott movement. The wave of
struggle which had developed during the years 1906-11 did
not maintain its strength during the immediately succeeding
years ; but the permanent advance which had been achieved
in the stature of the national movement was never lost. Despite
all the limitations of the Extremist leaders of those pre-1914
years, they had achieved a great and lasting work : the Indian
claim to freedom had for the first time during those years been

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

brought to the forefront of world political questions ; and
the seed of the aim of complete national liberation, and of
determined struggle to achieve it, had been implanted in the
political movement, and was destined in the subsequent
years to strike root in the masses of the people.

2. The Second Great Wave of Struggle 19 19-1922

It was the shock of the first world war, with its lasting blow
to the whole structure of imperialism, and the opening of the
world revolutionary wave that followed in 1917 and after,
which released the first mass movement of revolt in India.

Just as the awakening of 1905 reflected the world movement,
even more so was this the case with the great mass movement
which shook the foundations of British rule in India in the

years succeeding 1917. This unity of the development of the
struggle in India with the world struggle is of especial im¬
portance to realise, in view of the subjective and isolationist
tendencies frequently prevalent in some of the conventional
schools of Indian political thought to interpret profound
movements simply in terms of the personalities or particular
groups which in varying degree sought or failed to give them
leadership. There is no doubt that the transformation of the
political movement in India from relatively restricted sections
of the population to reach out to the masses of the people took
place in the years succeeding 1917. But this transformation
was not limited to India.

The war of 1914, following the lesson of the defeat of Russian
Tsarism by Japan a decade earlier, completed the shattering
of the myth of the invincibility of Western imperialism in the
eyes of the Asiatic peoples. The spectacle of the suicidal
conflict of the imperialist Powers aroused hopes in the breasts
of millions of the subject peoples that the hour of collapse
of the existing Empires was at hand.

Imperialism took firm measures from the outset to hold the
situation in hand, by the adoption of special legislation and
powers, notably the Defence of India Act, and by the im¬
prisonment or internment of the most irreconcilable fighters
or members of the revolutionary groups. In this task it was
assisted in the earlier period of the war by the willing co¬
operation of the upper sections of the political movement.
The Congress, under control of the Moderate leaders, pro-

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 299

claimed its loyalty and support of the war in resolutions
adopted at each of its four annual sessions during the war,
and even at the Delhi session in 1918 at the close of the war
passed a resolution of loyalty to the King and congratulations
on “ the successful termination of the war In return, the
Congress was treated with official favour; the 1914 Congress
was attended by Lord Pentland, Governor of Madras;
the 1915 Congress by Lord Willingdon, Governor of Bombay,,
and the 1916 Congress by Sir James Meston, Governor of the
United Provinces, the Government representatives being
received with ovations. Representative Indian leaders in
London at the time of the outbreak of war hastened to offer
their support to the Government. The Congress deputation
then in London, including Lajpat Rai, Jinnah, Sinha and others,
sent a letter to the Secretary of State proclaiming their con¬
viction that “ the Princes and people of India will readily
and willingly co-operate to the best of their ability and afford
opportunities of securing that end by placing the resources
of their country at His Majesty’s disposal ” for “ a speedy
victory for the Empire Gandhi, newly arrived in London
from South Africa, in a reception at the Hotel Cecil, urged
his young Indian friends to “ think imperially ” and “ do
their duty ” ; and in a letter from himself and other signatories
to the Secretary of State offered his services :

“ It was thought desirable by many of us that during the
crisis that has overtaken the Empire . . . those Indians
who are residing in the United Kingdom and who can at
all do so should place themselves unconditionally at the
service of the Authorities. On behalf of ourselves and those
whose names appear on the list appended hereto, we beg
to offer our services to the Authorities.”

His subsequent work in raising a volunteer ambulance corps
of Indians in London is well known. On returning to India,
he repeated his offer of service to the Viceroy, proposing to
raise a corps of stretcher-bearers for service to the Mesopo¬
tamian campaign; the Viceroy replied, excusing him on
grounds of health, and stating that “ his presence in India
itself at that critical time would be of more service than any
that he might be able to render abroad ”. He responded
to the Delhi War Conference called by the Viceroy in 1917,

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

300

and as late as July, 1918, he was conducting a recruiting
campaign in which he urged the Gujarati peasants to win
Swaraj by joining the army.

These demonstrations of “ loyalty ” by the Moderate leaders
were regarded by British official opinion as an expression
of gratitude and enthusiasm for the blessings of British rule.
In fact, however, the calculation of these leaders, as they
themselves subsequently explained, had been by these services
to imperialism at war to open the door most rapidly to Indian
self-government. Thus Gandhi declared, in his speech at his
trial in 1922 :

“ In all these efforts at service I was actuated by the
belief that it was possible by such services to gain a status
of full equality for my countrymen.”

They were later to express their disillusionment.

The docility of the upper political leadership did not prevent
the growth of mass unrest from the conditions of the war.
The very heavy burdens of crippling financial contributions
exacted from the poverty-stricken people of India for the service
of the war, the rising prices and the reckless profiteering
created conditions of mass misery and impoverishment, which
were reflected in the unparalleled toll of the influenza epidemic
at the end of the war, killing 14 millions. The growth of
unrest was reflected in the Ghadr movement in the Punjab,
and in mutinies in the army, which were suppressed with
ruthless executions and sentences. In 1917 the Rowlatt Com¬
mittee was appointed, under a Judge of the King’s Bench, to
enquire into “ the criminal conspiracies connected with the
revolutionary movements in India ” and recommend new
repressive legislation.

The growing unrest began to find a reflection in the political
movement, in which new stirrings appeared from 1916 '
onwards. In 1916 Tilak founded the Home Rule for India
League. His campaign was joined by the English theosophist,
Mrs. Besant, who sought to guide the national movement in
channels of “ loyalty ” to the Empire and was later to take
an active part in the fight against non-co-operation. Re¬
union between the Extremists and Moderates was achieved
at the Lucknow Congress in 1916. Even more important,
the plans for alliance between the Congress and the Moslem

, THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 3OI

League (founded in 1905), which had been originally prepared
at the Karachi Congress in 1913, reached fruition in 1916.
One of the reasons for this closer understanding was that
Moslem feeling had been strongly aroused by the war against
Turkey, and the Moslem League Conference of 1915 had
already revealed this discontent. In 1916 the Lucknow
Pact of the two bodies reached agreement on a common
scheme for reforms in the direction of partial self-government
within the Empire (elected majorities in the Councils, extended
powers of the Councils, half the Viceroy’s Executive to be
Indians), which became known as the Congress-League
scheme. At the same time the aim was proclaimed of India
becoming “ an equal partner in the Empire with the self-
governing Dominions ”,

This was the position when the rapid transformation of the
world situation in 1917, following the Russian Revolution,
affected the whole tempo of events and found its speedy
reflection in the relations of Britain and India. The issue
of national self-determination was brought to the forefront
by the Russian Revolution in a manner highly embarrassing
to the imperialist Powers on both sides. Within five months
of the fall of Tsarism the British Government hastened to
issue a declaration (known as the Montagu declaration,
from the name of the Secretary of State ftt the time, but in
fact planned and prepared by Curzon and Austen Chamber-
lain), which proclaimed the aims of British rule in India to
be “ the gradual development of self-governing institutions
with a view to the progressive realisation of Responsible
Government in India as an integral part of the British Empire ”,
and promising “ substantial steps in this direction as soon as
possible The hasty character of this declaration was shown
by the fact that only after it was made was the work begun to
endeavour to find out what it was intended to do; the
consequent Montagu-Chelmsford Report was only ready a
year later; the Reforms (along the lines of so-called
“ Dyarchy ” in the Provinces, or divisions of portfolios
between British and Indian Ministers) were not enacted until
the end of 1919 and only came into operation in 1920. By
that time the whole situation in India had changed.

The Reforms were partially successful, as with the Morley-
Minta scheme a decade earlier, in creating a division in the

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

302

upper-class national camp ; but the support of the Moderates
thus secured was of far less weight in the political situation
at this more advanced stage of development. Mrs. Besant,
presiding over the Calcutta Congress at the end of 1917, was
able to secure the adoption of a resolution “ that the Congress,
speaking on behalf of the united people of India, begs re¬
spectfully to convey to His Majesty the King-Emperor their
deep loyalty and profound attachment to the Throne, their
unswerving allegiance to the British connection and their firm
resolve to stand by the British Empire at all hazards and at all
costs ”. But when the Report came out in the summer
of 1 g 1 8, a special session of the Congress at Bombay condemned
the proposals as “ disappointing and unsatisfactory ”. It was
after this Special Congress that the principal Moderate leaders,
other than Gandhi, left the Congress, later to found the Indian
Liberal Federation, representing those bourgeois elements
which wished to co-operate with imperialism. As late as
December, 1919, the Congress still went on record for accept¬
ance of the Reforms ; but this was only after a sharp division,
in which Gandhi, supported by Mrs. Besant, led the fight for
co-operation, while the opposition was led by C. R. Das.
The final resolution reiterated the criticism of the Reforms,
and the demand for “ early steps to establish full Responsible
Government in accordance with the principle of self-
determination ”, but added, on the basis of an amendment
moved by Gandhi, that “ pending such introduction, this
Congress trusts that, so far as may be possible, the people will
so work the Reforms as to secure an early establishment of full
Responsible Government ”.

Gandhi’s view, as late as the end of 1919', in favour of co¬
operation and working the Reforms was expressed in an article
in his weekly journal at the end of the year:

“ The Reforms Act coupled with the Proclamation is an
earnest of the intention of the British people to do justice to
India and it ought to remove suspicion on that score. . . .
Our duty therefore is not to subject the Reforms to carping
criticism, but to settle down quietly to work so as to make
them a success.”

(M. K. Gandhi in Young India , December 31, 1919.)
This declaration is important, since it was made after the

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 303

Rowlatt Acts, after Amritsar and martial law in the Punjab —
that is, after those issues which were subsequently declared
to be the cause of non-co-operation — and thus shows that it
was different calculations which led to the decision in the
following year to inaugurate the non-co-operation movement.

For in fact, despite the still-continuing co-operation of the
Congress, the whole situation in India had changed in 1919,
and the basis for co-operation was disappearing from under
the feet of the Congress. The year 1919 saw a wave of
mass unrest spread over India. Already the closing months
of 1918 and the first months of 1919 saw the opening of a strikqr'
movement on a scale never before known in India. Iij
December, 1918, the Bombay mill strike began, which by
January, 1919, extended to 125,000 workers. The Rowlatt
Acts, introduced in the beginning of 1919 and enacted in
March, with the purpose to continue after the lapse of war¬
time legislation the extraordinary repressive powers of the
Government, for dispensing with ordinary court procedure,
and for imprisonment without trial, aroused widespread *
indignation as demonstrating the iron hand of imperialism
beneath the velvet glove of Reform. Gandhi, utilising his
South African experience, sought to organise a passive re¬
sistance movement against the Rowlatt Bills, and formed a
Satyagraha League for this purpose in February. A hartal,
or general day of suspension of business, was called for April 6.
The response of the masses startled and overwhelmed the
initiators of the movement. Through March and April a
mighty wave of mass demonstrations, strikes, unrest, in some
cases rioting, and courageous resistance to violent repression
in the face of heavy casualties, spread over many parts of
India. The official Government Report for the year speaks
with alarmed amazement of the new-found unity of the
people and the breakdown of all the official conceptions of
Hindu-Moslem antagonism :

“ One noticeable feature of the general excitement was
the unprecedented fraternisation between the Hindus and
the Moslems. Their union, between the leaders, had now
for long been a fixed plan of the nationalist platform.
In this time of public excitement even the lower classes agreed
for once to forget their differences. Extraordinary scenes of
fraternisation occurred. Hindus publicly accepted water

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

from the hands of Moslems and vice versa. Hindu -Moslem
Unity was the watchword of processions indicated both by
cries and by banners. Hindu leaders had actually been
allowed to preach from the pulpit of a Mosque.”

(“ India in 1919.”)

Extraordinary measures of repression followed. It was at
this time that the atrocity of Amritsar occurred, when General
Dyer fired 1,600 rounds of ammunition into an unarmed
crowd in an enclosed place without means of exit, killing
(according to the official figures) 379 and leaving 1,200
wounded without means of attention, the object being, accord¬
ing to his subsequent statement, to create “ a moral effect
from a military point of view, not only on those who were
present, but more especially throughout the Punjab ” — i.e.,
to terrorise the population. It is a measure of the thick
pall of repression which lay over India that any detailed
news of this massacre only crept through even to the leaders
of the Congress Committee four months later, and that for
nearly eight months all news of it was officially suppressed
and withheld from parliament and the British public. For
diplomatic reasons, in face of agitation and a Congress
enquiry, a committee had to be set up by the Government to
enquire into and condemn this outrage; but General Dyer
received the plaudits (and a purse of £20,000) from the
imperialists for his brave stand, and his action was officially
approved bythe House of Lords. Martial lawwasproclaimedin
the Punjab ; and the record of thewholesaleshootings, hangings,
bombing from the air, and extraordinary sentences perpetrated
by the tribunals during this reign of terror, is still only available
in fragmentary form from the subsequent enquiries.

“ The movement ”, in the view of British official opinion,
“ assumed the undeniable character of an organised revolt
against the British raj ” (Sir Valentine Chirol, “ India ”,
1926, p. 207). Gandhi took alarm at the situation which was
developing. In view of sporadic cases of violence of the
masses against their rulers which had appeared in Calcutta,
Bombay, Ahmedabad and elsewhere, he declared that he had
committed “ a blunder of Himalayan dimensions which had
enabled ill-disposed persons, not true passive resisters at all, to
perpetrate disorders ”. Accordingly, he suspended passive
resistance in the middle of April, within a week of the hartal,

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 305

and thus called off the movement at the moment it was
beginning to reach its height, on the grounds, as he sub¬
sequently explained in a letter to the Press on July ai, that “ a
civil resister never seeks to embarrass the Government”.
This initial experience of “ Satyagraha ” (literally, “ per¬
sistence in truth ”, used for the method of passive resistance)
was to be subsequently repeated on an extended scale.

In December, 1919, as has been seen, the Congress was
deciding for working the Reforms, and Gandhi was urging
that the task of the national movement was “ to settle down
quietly to work so as to make them a success ”. But the situa¬
tion left no room for such dreams to be realised. The tide of
rising mass unrest, which had swept forward in 1919, was still
advancing in 1920 and 1921, and was to be further intensified
by the economic crisis which began to develop in the latter
part of 1920. The first six months of 1920 saw the greatest
height of the strike movement, with no less than 200 strikes
involving one and a half million workers. Such a rising tide
made a mockery of the sage counsels of “ settling down
quietly ”. The President of the Congress declared at its
special session in September, ,1920 :

“ It is no use blinking the fact that we are passing through
a revolutionary period. . . . We are by instinct and
tradition averse to revolutions. Traditionally, we are a
slow-going people; but when we decide to move, we do
move quickly and by rapid strides. No living organism can
altogether escape revolutions in the course of its existence.”

(Lajpat Rai, Presidential Address to the Calcutta Special
Session of the National Congress in September, 1920.)

The analysis of the President of the Congress was in its essential
point correct. The declaration of the spokesman of the
Congress was in fact a declaration that in the midst of “ a
revolutionary period ” a leadership “ by instinct and tradition
averse to revolutions ” was faced with the problem of leading
the rising movement. Herein lay the contradiction of the
post-war situation in India, as indeed in many countries at
that time wherein the political movement had not yet reached a
maturity corresponding to the opportunities unloosed by the war.

It was in this situation that in 1920 Gandhi and the main
body of the Congress leadership (now deserted by the former

306 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

Moderates) executed a decisive change of front, threw over
co-operation with the Reforms, determined to take the leader¬
ship of the rising mass movement, and for this purpose evolved
the plan of “ non-violent non-co-operation Henceforward
the mass struggle was to be led by the Congress ; but the
price of that leadership was to be that the struggle must be
“ non-violent

The new plan of non-violent non-co-operation was adopted
at the Calcutta Special Congress in September, 1920. It was
carried, not without opposition, by the alliance of Gandhi and
Motilal Nehru with the militant Moslem leaders, the brothers
Ali, at the head of the then powerful Khilafat agitation (in
form a protest against the injustices of the Treaty of Sevres to
Turkey, the leading Moslem Power, but in practice the rally¬
ing point of Moslem mass unrest) . The resolution proclaimed
the policy of “ progressive non-violent non-co-operation
inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi, until the said wrongs are
righted and Swaraj is established The policy envisaged
successive stages, beginning with the renunciation of titles
bestowed by the Government, and the triple boycott (boycott j
of the legislatures, lawcourts and educational institutions), J
together with “ reviving hand-spinning in every house and
hand- weaving ”, and leading up at some future date to the
final stage of non-payment of taxes. It will be seen that the
immediate measures were measures of boycott to be adopted
by the middle-class elements, officials, lawyers and students,
with the only role for the masses the constructive task of
“ hand-spinning and hand-weaving ” ; the active participation
of the masses, through non-payment of taxes (which inevitably
meant a No-Rent campaign), was reserved for later.

The boycott of the elections to the new legislatures, which
took place in November, was markedly successful, two-thirds
of the electors abstaining. The boycott of educational institu¬
tions had a considerable measure of success, masses of students
sweeping with enthusiasm into the non-co-operation move¬
ment. The lawyers’ boycott was less successful, except for a
few outstanding examples, such as those of Motilal Nehru and
C. R. Das.

At the annual session of the Congress at Nagpur in Decem¬
ber, 1920, the new programme was finally adopted with
practical unanimity. The Creed of the Congress was changed

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 307

from the previous proclamation of the aim of colonial self-
government within the Empire, to be attained by constitu¬
tional means, to the new aim of “ the attainment of Swaraj
by peaceful and legitimate means The organisation of the
Congress was carried forward from its previous loose char¬
acter to the machinery of a modern party, with its units
reaching down to the villages and localities, and with a stand¬
ing Executive (“ Working Committee ”) of fifteen.

The new programme and policy inaugurated by Gandhi
marked a giant’s advance for the National Congress. The
Congress now stood out as a political party leading the masses
in struggle against the Government for the realisation of
national freedom. From this point the National Congress
won its position (a position at which the militant nationalists
of the earlier years would have rubbed their eyes) as the cen¬
tral focus of the united national movement, a position which,
through good and evil repute, through whatever changes of
tactics and fortunes, it has maintained and carried forward
up to this day.

But the new programme and policy contained also another
element, an element alien to the mass struggle, an element of
petty-bourgeois moralising speculation and reformist pacifism,
which found its chosen expression in the innocent-seeming term
“ non-violent That term was intended by Gandhi to
represent a whole religious-philosophical conception, preached
by him with eloquence and devotion, akin in certain respects
to older schools of Indian speculative thought, but more
closely related to and deriving from late Western schools of
thought associated with Tolstoy, Thoreau and Emerson, which
had had their vogue and influence during Gandhi’s earlier
years in the West and in the formation of his thought. That
same term was accepted by many of Gandhi’s associates, who
were far from sharing his philosophical conception, as an
apparently common-sense rule of expediency for at any rate
the earlier stages of struggle of an unarmed people against a
powerfully armed ruling enemy. But in fact, as the subsequent
experience of events and the ever-developing interpretation
of that term were to demonstrate, that seemingly innocent
humanitarian or expedient term contained concealed within
it, not only the refusal of the final struggle, but the thwarting
also of the immediate struggle by the attempt to conciliate

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

the interests of the masses with the big bourgeois and landlord
interests which were inevitably opposed to any decisive masi
struggle. Herein lay the contradiction which was to lead to
the collapse of the movement, despite great achievements, both
in this first trial and in the extended trial a decade later, and
the failure to win that speedy victory of Swaraj which was freeh
promised as the certain and rapid outcome of the new policy.

A great sweep forward of the mass movement followed the
adoption by the Congress of the new militant programme of
struggle against the Government for the speedy realisation of
Swaraj. Gandhi freely declared as a firm and certain
prophecy (which, despite its naive character, was confidently
believed by his followers in the flush of enthusiasm of those
days) the rash promise that Swaraj would be achieved within
twelve months, that is — for the date was definite — by Decem¬
ber 31, 1921. He even went so far as to declare, at a con¬
ference in September, 1921, “ that he was so sure of getting
Swaraj before the end of the year that he could not conceive of
himself as living beyond December 31 without having won
Swaraj ” (Subhas Bose, “ The Indian Struggle ”, p. 84).
However, he had still many years of political activity before him,
though not yet the fortune of seeing the realisation of Swaraj.

Gandhi’s plan of campaign was less clear than the date of
victory. The official “ History of the Indian National
Congress ” writes :

“ Mass civil disobedience was the thing that was luring
the people. What was it, what would it be? Gandhi
himself never defined it, never elaborated it, never visualised
it even to himself. It must unfold itself to a discerning:
vision, to a pure heart, from step to step, much as the path¬
way in a dense forest would reveal itself to the wayfarer1*
feet as he wends his weary way until a ray of light brighten
the hopes of an all but despairing wanderer.”

(Official “ History of the Indian National Congress ”,
1935, P- 376.)

Subhas Bose relates his disheartenment when, as an eag
young disciple in his first interview with the Mahatma i
those fateful days of 1921, he sought to obtain “ a clear under¬
standing of the details — the successive stages — of his plan

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 309

leading on step by step to the ultimate seizure of power from
the foreign bureaucracy ”, and failed to get an answer :

“ What his real expectation was, I was unable to under¬
stand. Either he did not want to give out all his secrets
prematurely or he did not have a clear conception of the
tactics whereby the hands of the Government could be
forced.”

(Subhas Bose, “The Indian Struggle 1920-1934”,

p. 68.)

Jawaharlal Nehru writes of the “ delightful vagueness ” of
Gandhi :

“It was obvious that to most of our leaders Swaraj meant
something much less than independence. Gandhiji was
delightfully vague on the subject, and he did not encourage
clear thinking about it either.”

(Jawaharlal Nehru, “ Autobiography ”, p. 76.)

However, he explains :

“ We all felt that he was a great and unique man and a
glorious leader, and having put our faith in him we gave him
an almost blank cheque, for the time being at least.”

. {Ibid., p. 73.)

The advance of the movement in 1921 was demonstrated,
not only in the enthusiastic development of the non-co-opera¬
tion movement, but in the accompanying rising forms of
mass struggle in all parts of the country, as in the Assam—
Bengal railway strike, the Midnapore No-Tax campaign,
the Moplah rebellion in Malabar in the South, and the militant
Akali movement against the Government-defended rich
Mohants in the Punjab. ■

Towards the closing months of 1921 the struggle leapt to
new heights. The Government, in deep alarm and anxiety
over the whole situation, played their hoped-for Ace of
Trumps against Gandhi by bringing in — not merely the Duke
of Connaught, as earlier in the year — but the Prince of Wales
himself to tour India, not so much in any vain hopes of con¬
ciliating the people, as to test out the feeling of the population
in relation to this royal image understood by every Anglo-
Saxon expert of the mysterious East to represent the deepest
object of veneration and adoration of the Oriental heart.

310 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

The result exceeded their expectations — in the reverse direc¬
tion. The Hartal all over India which greeted the Prince of
Wales on his arrival on November 17 was the most over¬
whelming and successful demonstration of popular dis¬
affection which India had yet known. The hostility of the
people and the angry repression by the Government led to
sanguinary struggles, which Gandhi sought vainly to check
and which led him to declare that Swaraj stank in his nostrils.!

From this point the National Volunteer movement began toj
consolidate its ranks. They were still organised within the
framework of the Congress or of the Khilafat movement on the
basis of “non-violent non-co-operation”; but many wore
uniform, drilled and marched in mass formation to organise
hartals and the boycott of foreign cloth by picketing and
peaceful persuasion.

The full force of Government repression was turned against
the National Volunteers. The Governmental Press, such as the
Statesman and the Englishman, howled that the National
Volunteers had taken possession of Calcutta and that the
Government had abdicated, and demanded immediate action.
The Government proclaimed the Volunteers illegal organisa¬
tions. Arrests spread in thousands. Thousands of students
and factory workers replenished the ranks of the Volunteers.

By the end of December all the best-known Congress leaders,
except Gandhi, were imprisoned. Twenty thousand political
prisoners filled the jails. At the highest point of the struggle,
at the beginning of the following year, 30,000 were in jail.
Enthusiasm was at fever heat.

The Government was anxious and perplexed, and began to
lose its nerve. If the infection of universal defiance of the

Government spread from the towns and began to reach the
millions of the peasantry, there was no salvation left for British
rule; all their guns and aeroplanes would not avail them in
the seething cauldron of rebellion of 300 millions. The Viceroy
proceeded, through the intermediary of Pandit Malaviya,1
to negotiate with the political leaders in jail. He offered
legalisation of the National Volunteers and release of tho
prisoners in return for the calling off of civil disobedience. Thtf
negotiations proved abortive.

In this situation the Ahmedabad Congress was held at the
close of the year, with Gandhi now almost alone in the leader-

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 3 1 1

ship. Failing C. R. Das, the valiant leader of Bengal, who
was to have presided and was in prison, Gandhi introduced an
English clergyman at the opening of the proceedings to deliver
a religious message to the Congress, who took the opportunity
to deliver a homily against the burning of foreign cloth.

Amid enthusiasm the Ahmedabad Congress passed resolu¬
tions proclaiming “ the fixed determination of the Congress to
continue the campaign of non-violent non-co-operation with
greater vigour . . . till Swaraj is established and the control
of the Government of India passes into the hands of the
people ”, calling on all over eighteen years of age to join the
illegal National Volunteers, pledging the aim “ to concentrate
attention upon Civil Disobedience, whether mass or individual,
. whether of an offensive or defensive character ”, and placing
full dictatorial powers for this purpose in the hands of “ Ma¬
hatma Gandhi as the sole Executive authority of the Congress
Gandhi was now Dictator of the Congress. The movement
was at its highest point. Full powers had been placed in his

I hands to lead it to victory. The moment had come for the final
trial of strength, for the launching of mass civil disobedience.
The whole country was looking to Gandhi. What would he do ?

In the midst of this ferment of national enthusiasm and hope
one man on the Congress side was unhappy and alarmed at
the development of events. That man was Gandhi. His
movement, the movement that he had envisaged, was not
developing at all in the way that he had intended. Something
was going wrong. This was not the perfect idyllic philosophic
“ non-violent ” movement he had pictured. He had un¬
chained a monster. Ugly elements were creeping in. Reck¬
less men, especially among his Moslem colleagues, were even
beginning to demand the abandonment of the “ non-violence ”
clause. More and more openly, already in those closing weeks
of 1921, when the tens of thousands of fighters were going to
prison with his name on their lips, he was expressing his alarm and
disgust, as in his revealing cry that Swaraj stank in his nostrils.

At Ahmedabad the retreat began. Not yet too openly, in
the midst of that tense atmosphere of impending battle and
expectant thousands. But the small signs were there. The
Ahmedabad Congress was itself the historic moment and the
ideal occasion for launching the call to mass civil disobedience
throughout the country, the call to the final struggle and

312 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

victory, for which the people were waiting. The Manifesto
of the young Communist Party of India to the Ahmedabad j
Congress declared :

“ If the Congress would lead the revolution, which ij
shaking India to the very foundation, let it not put faith ini
mere demonstrations and temporary wild enthusiasm. Let
it make the immediate demands of the Trade Unions its
own demands; let it make the programme of the Kisan
Sabhas (peasant unions) its own programme ; and the time
will soon come when the Congress will not stop before any
obstacle ; it will be backed by the irresistible strength of the
entire population consciously fighting for their material
interests.

(Manifesto of the Communist Party of India to the
Ahmedabad National Congress, 1921.)

The call to open the struggle was not made at Ahmedabad.
Instead, careful observers noted that all reference to non¬
payment of taxes had disappeared from the Ahmedabad j
resolution. The references to mass civil disobedience were.;
hedged round with ifs and ans : “ under proper safeguards ”,
“ under instructions to be issued ”, “ when the mass of people
have been sufficiently trained in methods of non-violence ”,

. . . Then came the episode of the Republican Moslem
leader, Hasrat Mohani, who wished to move a resolution
defining Swaraj as “ complete independence, free from all
foreign control ”. Gandhi struck hard in opposition (“ it has
grieved me because it shows lack of responsibility ”), and
secured its rejection.

The Government of India, watching with straining eyes, saw
the small signs at Ahmedabad and breathed a sigh of relief.
The Viceroy telegraphed to the Secretary of State in London :

“ During Christmas week the Congress held its annual
meeting at Ahmedabad. Gandhi had been deeply impressed
by the rioting at Bombay, as statements made by him at
the time had indicated, and the rioting had brought home
to him the dangers of mass civil disobedience; and the
resolutions of the Congress gave evidence of this, since they
not only rejected the proposals which the extreme wing of
the Khilafat party had advanced for abandoning the policy
of non-violence, but, whilst the organisation of civil dis-

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 313

obedience when fulfilment of the Delhi conditions had taken
place was urged in them, omitted any reference to the non¬
payment of taxes.”

(“ Telegraphic Correspondence regarding the Situation
. in India ”, Cmd. 1586, 1922.)

What would Gandhi do? The Ahmedabad Congress had
dissolved without a plan. All was left in Gandhi’s hands.
Like the Parisian people in the siege of Paris, who endeavoured
to comfort themselves with the belief that “ General Trochu
has a plan ”, the Indian people, under the hammer-blows of
imperialist repression, looked hopefully to Gandhi to unfold
his strategy.

Gandhi’s action was peculiar. He waited a month. During
this month districts approached him, pleading to begin a No-
Tax campaign. One district, Guntur, began without per¬
mission. Gandhi sent an immediate note to the Congress
officials to see that all taxes were paid by the date due. Then
he decided to make a beginning with one tiny district where he
had taken special care to ensure perfect “ non-violent ”
conditions — the district of Bardoli, with a population of
87,000 — or one four-thousandth part of the Indian people that
was awaiting his leadership to act. On February 1 he sent
his ultimatum to the Viceroy to declare that, unless the
prisoners were released and repressive measures abandoned,
“ mass civil disobedience ” would begin — in Bardoli ex¬
clusively. Hardly had he done this when, a few days later,
news arrived that at a little village, Chauri Chaura in the
United Provinces, angry peasants had stormed and burned the
village police station resulting in the death of twenty-two
policemen. This news of the growth of unrest among the
peasantry immediately determined Gandhi that there was no
time to be lost. At a hasty meeting of the Working Com¬
mittee at Bardoli on February 12, the decision was reached,
in view of the “ inhuman conduct of the mob at Chauri
Chaura ”, to end, not only mass civil disobedience, but the
whole campaign of civil disobedience through volunteer
processions, the holding of public meetings under ban and the
like, and to substitute a “ constructive ” programme of
spinning, temperance reform and educational activities. The
battle was over. The whole campaign was over. The
mountain had indeed borne a mouse.

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

To say that the Bardoli decision created consternation in
the Congress camp would be to fall short of any power of
language to describe the feelings that were aroused. The
nearest approach for English readers would be the effect
•of the calling off of tjhe general strike in 1926 as some parallel
to India’s Bardoli in 1922.

“ To sound the order of retreat just when public en¬
thusiasm was reaching the boiling point was nothing short
of a national calamity. The principal lieutenants of the
Mahatma, Deshbandu Das, Pandit Motilal Nehru and
Lala Lajpat Rai, who were all in prison, shared the popular
resentment. I was with the Deshbandu at the time, and I
could see that he was beside himself with anger and sorrow.”

(Subhas Bose, “ The Indian Struggle ”, p. 90.)

Motilal Nehru, Lajpat Rai and others sent from prison long
and indignant letters to Gandhi protesting at his decision.
Gandhi coldly replied that men in prison were “ civilly dead ”
and had no claim to any say in policy.

The entire movement, which had been organised on the
basis of complete discouragement of any spontaneous mass
activity and mechanical subordination to the will of one man,
was inevitably thrown into helpless confusion and demoralisa¬
tion by the Bardoli decision. Even Jawaharlal Nehru, who
endeavours to defend the decision on the grounds that the
movement would have otherwise got out of hand and cer¬
tainly entered into the paths of violence and bloody struggle
with the Government, in which the Government would
certainly have won, admits that the manner of the decision
“ brought about a certain demoralisation. It is possible
that this sudden bottling up of a great movement contri¬
buted to a tragic development in the country. The drift
to sporadic and futile violence in the political struggle was
stopped, but the suppressed violence had to find a way out,
and in the following years this perhaps aggravated the
communal trouble.”

(Jawaharlal Nehru, “ Autobiography ”, p. 86.)

After the movement had been thus paralysed and demora¬
lised from within, the Government struck with confidence.
On March 10 Gandhi was arrested and sentenced to six
years’ imprisonment. Not a ripple followed in the mass

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 315

movement. Within less than two years Gandhi was released.
The crisis was over.

Great controversy has raged over the Bardoli decision and
its bitter consequences for the national movement in the six
years’ subsequent ebb that followed. Defences have been put
forward that the real cause and justification of the decision
must be sought deeper than in the alleged issue of Chauri
Chaura, officially given as the reason for the decision, and that
in reality the time had come when it was essential to stop the
movement because “ our movement, in spite of its apparent
power and the widespread enthusiasm, was going to pieces ”
(Nehru, “ Autobiography ”, p. 85). It may be asked in what
sense the movement was “ going to pieces ”. If by this is
meant that the reformist-pacifist control of the movement was
weakening, this is undoubtedly correct. But this advance
was inherent in the advance of the movement and the con¬
dition of its future victory (Nehru’s assumption of the in¬
evitability of the Government’s victory in the face of an all-
Indian popular revolt would not have been as cheerfully
assumed by the Government). If, on the other hand, it
might be taken to mean that the effective strength of the
mass struggle had in reality passed its highest point and was
weakening, such a claim would certainly not be correct, and
is, indeed, not intended to be suggested even by the apologists.
The clearest evidence of this is afforded by the Government’s
own grave estimate of the actual forces of the situation three
days before the Bardoli collapse. On February 9, 1922, the
Viceroy telegraphed to London :

“ The lower classes in the towns have been seriously
affected by the non-co-operation movement. ... In
certain areas the peasantry have been affected, particularly
in parts of the Assam Valley, United Provinces, Bihar and
Orissa and Bengal. As regards the Punjab, the Akali
agitation . . . has penetrated to the rural Sikhs. A large
proportion of the Mohammedan population throughout the
country are embittered and sullen . . . grave possibilities.
. . . The Government of India are prepared for disorder
of a more formidable nature than has in the past occurred,
and do not seek to minimise in any way the fact that great
anxiety is caused by the situation.”

(Viceroy to Secretary of State for India, February 9,

3 1 6

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

1922, “ Telegraphic Correspondence regarding the
Situation in India ”, Cmd. 1586, 1922.)

This was the Government’s picture of the situation three days
before the whole campaign was cancelled by the Bardoli
decision on February 12.1

The discipline of the mass movement and readiness for
decisive struggle were shown by the example of Guntur,
where, in despite of Gandhi’s orders, through a misunder¬
standing the No-Tax campaign was inaugurated. Not 5
per cent, of the taxes were collected — until Gandhi’s counter¬
manding order came. On a word of command from the
Congress centre this process could have undoubtedly been
unleashed through the country, and would have turned into a
universal refusal of land revenue and rent. But this process
would have meant the sweeping away, not only of imperialism,
but also of landlordism.

That these considerations were the decisive considerations
behind the Bardoli decision is proved by the text of the de¬
cision itself. The text of the resolution adopted by the
Working Committee at Bardoli on February 12 is so important
as to deserve reproduction, and repays careful study for the
light it throws on the forces and contradictions of the Indian
national movement. The essential clauses run :

“ Clause 1, The Working Committee deplores the in¬
human conduct of the mob at Chauri Chaura in having
brutally murdered constables and wantonly burned police
thana (station).

“ Clause 2. In view of the violent outbreaks every time
mass civil disobedience is inaugurated, indicating that the
country is not non-violent enough, the Working Committee

1 The impression of the Government on the crisis of 1922 and their view
that only Gandhi’s calling off of the movement saved them was subsequently
expressed by Lord Lloyd, then Governor of Bombay, in an interview :

“ He gave us a scare ! His programme filled our jails. You can’t go
arresting people forever, you know — not when there are 319,000,000 of
them. And if they had taken his next step and refused to pay taxes !
God knows where we should have been ! j

“ Gandhi’s was the most colossal experiment in world history ; and
it came within an inch of succeeding. But he couldn’t control men’s
passions. They became violent and he called oft' his programme. You
know the rest. We jailed him.”

(Lord Lloyd in an interview with Drew Pearson, quoted by C. F.

Andrews in the Mew Republic, April 3, 1939.)

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 3 1 7

of the Congress resolves that mass civil disobedience . . .
be suspended, and instructs the local Congress Committees to
advise the cultivators to pay land revenue and other taxes due to the
Government, and to suspend every other activity of an offensive
character.

“ Clause 3. The suspension of mass civil disobedience
shall be continued until the atmosphere is so non-violent as
to ensure the non-repetition of atrocities such as Gorakhpur
or of the hooliganism such as at Bombay and Madras on
the 17th of November and the 13th of January. . . .

“ Clause 5. All volunteer processions and public meetings
for the defiance of authority should be stopped.

“ Clause 6. The Working Committee advises Congress workers
and organisations to inform the ryots ( peasants ) that withholding of
rent payment to the Zemindars ( landlords ) is contrary to the Congress
resolutions and injurious to the best interests of the country. -

“ Clause 7. The Working Committee assures the Zemindars that
the Congress movement is in no way intended to attack their legal rights ,
and that even where the ryots have grievances, the Committee desires
that redress be sought by mutual consultation and arbitration.”

The resolution shows that it was not an abstract question of
non-violence which actuated the movers. It will be noted that
no less than three clauses (italicised) deal specifically, em¬
phatically and even urgently with the necessity of the payment
of rent by the peasants to the landlords or Government.
There is here no question of violence or non-violence. There is
simply a question of class interests, of exploiters and ex¬
ploited. The non-payment of rent could not be suggested by
any one to be a “ violent ” action : on the contrary, it is a
most peaceful (though also most revolutionary) form of
protest. Why, then, should a resolution, nominally con¬
demning “ violence ”, concentrate so emphatically on this
question of the non-payment of rent and the “ legal rights ”
of landlords? There is only one answer possible. The
phraseology of “ non-violence ” is revealed as only in reality
a cover, conscious or unconscious, for class interests and the
maintenance of class exploitation.

The dominant leadership of the Congress associated with
Gandhi called off the movement because they were afraid
of the awakening mass activity ; and they were afraid of the
mass activity because it was beginning to threaten those

318 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MO

propertied class interests with which they themselves were
still in fact closely linked.

Not the question of “ violence ” or “ non-violence ”, but
the question of class interest in opposition to the mass move¬
ment, was the breaking-point of the national struggle in 1922.
This was the rock on which the movement broke. This was
the real meaning of “ Non-Violence

3. The Third Great Wave of Struggle, 1930-1934

For half a decade after the blow of Bardoli the national
movement was prostrated. The Congress fell to a low ebb.
By 1924 Gandhi was declaring that, in place of the pro¬
claimed aim of 10 million members, they could not claim
more than 200,000 : “ We politicians do not represent the
masses except in opposition to the Government.” The
“ spinning franchise ”, introduced by Gandhi that year
(requiring members of elected Congress organisations to send
in 2,000 yards of self- spun yarn every month), had only
produced a roll of 10,000 members by the autumn of 1925,
when it was withdrawn as an obligatory condition and made
optional. The Bombay Chronicle in 1925 spoke of a “ general
paralysis and stagnation Lajpat Rai in the same year
spoke of “ chaos and confusion ”. “ The political situation ”,
he declared, “ is anything but hopeful and encouraging.
The people are sunk in depression. Everything — principles,
practices, parties and politics — seem to be in a state of dis¬
integration and dissolution.” In this depression of the
national movement the sinister symptom of communal disorders
was able to spread over the land. The Moslem League sep¬
arated itself again from the Congress. The Hindu Mahasabha
conducted a narrow and reactionary counter-propaganda.

A section of the leadership of the Congress, represented by
C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru, sought after Bardoli to make a
decisive turn away from what they regarded as the sterile and
unpractical policies of Gandhi by forming a new party, while
remaining within the Congress, to contest the elections and
carry forward the fight on the parliamentary plane within the
new legislatures. This new party was named the Swaraj Party.

The decision to end the boycott of the elections and of the
legislatures was undoubtedly, in view of the weakness of the
mass movement, a step in advance. It was opposed by the

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 3 1 9

impotent and conservative “ No-Changers ” in the Congress,
who clung to Gandhi’s “ constructive programme ” of spin¬
ning, temperance, removal of untouchability and similar
social reforms as the only path of salvation; but they were
powerless to prevent sanctioning of its adoption by that section
of the Congress which desired a more positive policy. By 1925
the Congress made its complete and unconditional surrender
to the Swaraj Party, which held the majority and whose leaders)
took over decisive control, while Gandhi passed for the time
being into the background.

The Swaraj Party leaders, however, in seeking to turn away
from the policies of Gandhi which had landed the movement
in an impasse, also turned away still farther from any basis in
the masses. The only real advance from the policy of Gandhi
could have been an advance from the domination of those
upper-class interests which had betrayed the national struggle
to the new basis of the interests of the main body of the nation,
the workers and peasants, who alone had no ground for
compromise with imperialism. In abstract principle the new
Swaraj Party took a step towards recognising this; C. R.
Das, in a phrase which won wide echoes, spoke of “ Swaraj,
for the 98 per cent.” ; and the new programme spoke in
general terms of the necessity of workers’ and peasants’'
organisation. But in practice the Swaraj Party was the party
of the progressive upper bourgeoisie ; its existence depended on-
the support of these elements, just as its main leaders came
from among them ; and, however much they might talk
sentimentally of the workers and peasants, to win the support
of the upper-class elements they had to make perfectly clear
that their party was “ sound ” on the essential basis of land¬
lordism and capitalism. So their foundation programme of
aims specifically included the clause that “ private and in¬
dividual property will be recognised and maintained, and the
growth of individual wealth, both movable and immovable,
will be permitted ” ; while the accompanying explanatory
statement of the programme rebutted the “ slander ” that the
Swaraj Party was alleged to be opposed to the landlords by
declaring : “ True it is that the Party stands for justice to the
tenant, but poor indeed will be the quality of that justice if it
involves any injustice to the landlord.”

In practice, therefore, the Swaraj Party, though intended

320 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

to represent a step in advance, was no more than the reflection
of the ebb of the tide of mass struggle. The Swaraj Party was
the party of the progressive bourgeoisie moving to co-operation
with imperialism along the inclined plane of parliamentarism .
From its inception it slid downwards ever closer to the sup¬
posed enemy. At the outset the aim of entry into the Councils
was declared to be “ uniform and consistent obstruction ”,
On this basis a considerable victory was won in the elections
of 1923, and the Party entered the Central Assembly as the
strongest single party, able by collaboration with the In¬
dependents or Liberals (former Moderates) to establish a
precarious majority. Already on entry, C. R. Das, as leader,
declared: “His party had come there to offer their co¬
operation. If the Government would receive their co¬
operation, they would find that the Swarajists were their
men.” By 1925 C. R. Das was declaring, in a famous state¬
ment at Faridpur, that he saw signs of a “ change of heart ” in
the Government (a statement hardly borne out by the attitude
of the then Secretary of State, Lord Birkenhead, who referred
with unconcealed contempt in a public speech to “ the un¬
substantial ghost of Indian Nationalism ”), and made a formal
offer of co-operation on conditions, part of those conditions
being a common fight against the revolutionary movement.
The spokesmen of the Liberals now affirmed that no difference
of importance remained between them and the Swarajists.
In the spring of 1926 the Sabarmati Pact contemplated accept¬
ance of office, but was turned down owing to opposition of the
rank and file. At the new elections in the autumn of 1926 the
Swaraj Party suffered a marked setback, except in Madras.

But the hopes of the bourgeoisie for harmonious co-operation
with imperialism were destined to end in disillusionment.
As soon as it was clear that the forces of the national struggle
had weakened, and that the Swarajists, divorced from the mass
movement, were reduced to pleading for terms, imperialism/
reversed the engines, began to go back on the partial economic
concessions granted to the Indian bourgeoisie during the pre¬
vious years, and opened an economic offensive to re-establish
full domination, through the Currency Bill of 1927, the
establishment of the rupee ratio at is. 6 d. (in the face of
universal Indian protests), and the new Steel Protection Bill

of 1927, which undermined the protection of the 1924 Act

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 321

by introducing preferential rates for British steel. Towards
the end of 1927 the Simon Commission was announced, to
settle the fate of the future constitution for India, with a com¬
plete exclusion of Indian representation.

Thus the Indian bourgeoisie, however unwillingly, found
themselves once again forced to turn aside from their hopes of
co-operation and to look towards the possibility of harnessing
the mass forces once more in their support, if they were to have
any prospect of driving a successful bargain. But the con¬
ditions were now far more difficult and complicated than a
decade ago. For in the interval the mass forces had begun
to awaken to new life of their own, to independent political
expression and aims, and to active struggle, not only against
imperialism, but against the Indian exploiters. The triangular
character of the contest, or rather the deeper contest between
imperialism and the Indian masses, with the hesitant and
vacillating role of the Indian bourgeoisie, was now coming far
more clearly to the front. Hence the peculiar character of the
new stage of struggle which now opened out, developing from
its first signs in the latter part of 1927 to its full strength in
I93°-34 : on the one hand, the far more widespread, intensive
and prolonged character of the struggle; on the other, the
spasmodic, interrupted tempo of development, the zigzag
vacillation of aims, the repeated accompanying negotiations,
and sudden truces without settlement, until the final collapse.

The new factor which developed for the first time in the
middle years of the nineteen-twenties, and gave the decisive
impetus to the new wave of struggle, though not yet its leader¬
ship, was the emergence of the industrial working class as an
independent force, conducting its own struggle with un-'
exampled energy and heroism, and beginning to develop its
own leadership. With this advance the new ideology of the
working class, or Socialism, began to develop for the first <
time as a political factor in India, and the influence of its
ideas began to penetrate the youth and the left sections of
Indian Nationalism, bringing new life and energy and wider
horizons. The Cawnpore conspiracy trial of 1924 showed the
sharp look-out of imperialism to stamp out the first signs of
revolutionary working-class politics. The growth of the
Workers’ and Peasants’ Party, which came to the front
during 1926 and 1927, preceded the great advance of trade

322 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

unionism and the strike movement in 1928. The colossal
strike movement of 1928, with a total of 31,647,000 working
days lost, or more than during the previous five years put
together ; the growth of the new fighting Girni Kamgar
Union or Red Flag Union of the Bombay textile workers to an
officially returned membership of 65,000 within a year, and
increase of trade-union membership by 70 per cent. ; the
foremost political role of the working class in the demon¬
strations against the Simon Commission during that year;
the rising militant consciousness of the trade unions and the
victory of the left wing in the Trade Union Congress in 1929 —
these were the harbingers and the driving force that led to the
new wave of struggle of the Indian people.

The reflection of this advance began to appear in the emer¬
gence of a new left wing in the Congress and the national
movement. Towards the end of 1927 Jawaharlal Nehru
returned from a prolonged tour of over a year and a half in
Europe, where he had made contact with socialist circles and
ideas. The Madras Congress, at the end of 1927, showed the
advance of new leftward tendencies, especially among the
youth. A resolution for complete independence as the aim of
the national movement — always previously opposed by the
leadership — was unanimously carried (in the absence of
Gandhi, who later condemned it as “ hastily conceived and
thoughtlessly passed ”). Boycott of the Simon Commission
was determined ; at the same time participation in an All-
Parties Conference was approved to evolve an alternative
constitutional scheme. The Congress affiliated to the newly
founded International League Against Imperialism. Jawa¬
harlal Nehru and Subhas Bose, the principal leaders of the
youth and of the developing leftward tendencies in the
Congress, were appointed General Secretaries.

The apparent victory of the left at the 1927 Congress was
superficial and based on lack of opposition. But as 1928
unfolded its events, with the success of the demonstrations
against the Simon Commission, with the advance of the strike
movement, and with the growth of the newly founded In¬
dependence League and of youth and student organisations,
it was clear to the older leadership that the left was developing
as a force which might rapidly sweep the Congress. At the-
All-Parties Conference the older leadership, in collaboration

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 323

with the moderate or reactionary elements outside the Con¬
gress, evolved a scheme (known as the Nehru Report, from the
Chairman, the elder Nehru) for a constitution based on
responsible government within the British Empire, thus
shelving the demand for independence. But in face of the
rising tide of feeling, there was doubt whether this scheme
would be accepted by the Congress.

In this critical balance of forces, with the certainty of big
new struggles ahead in a far more advanced situation than a
decade previously, the right-wing leadership once again turned
to Gandhi, whom they had previously thrust aside, and whose
star now once again rose. At the Calcutta session at the end
of 1928 Gandhi returned to active leadership of the Congress.
Whatever the views of the moderate leaders might be with
regard to his personal idiosyncrasies, there was no question
that he was the most subtle and experienced politician of the
older group, with unrivalled mass prestige which world
publicity had now enhanced as the greatest Indian figure ;
the ascetic defender of property in the name of the most
religious and idealist principles of humility and love of
poverty ; the invincible metaphysical-theological casuist who
could justify and reconcile anything and everything in an
astounding tangle of explanations and arguments which in a
man of common clay might have been called dishonest
quibbling, but in the great ones of the earth like MacDonald
or Gandhi is recognised as a higher plane of spiritual reason¬
ing ; the prophet who by his personal saintliness and selfless¬
ness could unlock the door to the hearts of the masses where the
moderate bourgeois leaders could not hope for a hearing —
and the best guarantee of the shipwreck of any mass movement
which had the blessing of his association. This Jonah of revolu¬
tion, this general of unbroken disasters was the mascot of the
bourgeoisie in each wave of the developing Indian struggle. So
appeared once again the characteristic feature of modern Indian
politics, the unwritten article of every successive Indian consti¬
tution — the indispensability of Gandhi (actually the expression
of the precarious balance of class forces) . All the hopes of the
bourgeoisie (the hostile might say, the hopes of imperialism)
were fixed on Gandhi as the man to ride the waves, to unleash
just enough of the mass movement in order to drive a successful
bargain, and at the same time to save India from revolution.

324 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

At the Calcutta Congress in December, 1928, Gandhi had
difficulty in securing acceptance of the Nehru Report. The
resolution he drafted promised that this Report should not be
regarded as in any way withdrawing the aim of complete
independence, and that if this Report were not accepted by the
Government by December 31, 1929 (Gandhi had originally
drafted 1930, giving two years’ respite, but 1929 was carried),
then the Congress would revive the campaign of non-violent
non-co-operation, and this time begin with non-payment of
taxes. Even this resolution was only carried by a relatively
narrow majority, with a vote of 1,350 against 973 for the left
amendment, sponsored by Bose and the younger Nehru,
insisting on the immediate aim of complete independence as
against the Nehru Report. Action was thus delayed for twelve
months at a moment when the events of 1928 had shown the
highest level of mass unrest. Twelve months’ notice was given
to imperialism to prepare. “ The temporising resolution of
the Calcutta Congress ”, remarks Subhas Bose (“ The Indian
Struggle ”, p. 181) “ only served to kill precious time.”
Meanwhile, a warning signal of the situation appeared in the
demonstration of 20,000 Calcutta workers (50,000, according
to the official History of the National Congress), who presented
themselves to the Calcutta Congress with slogans for national
independence and for the “ Independent Socialist Republic
of India ”, and took possession of the pandal for two hours,
while the national reformist leaders had to make way for them
and hear the demand of the working class for irreconcilable
struggle for national independence.

Tbe twelve months of delay secured time for imperialism to
act. Imperialism did not waste its opportunity. In March,
1929, all the most prominent leaders of the rising working-
class movement were arrested from all parts of India, and
brought to the remote court of Meerut for trial (where they
could be tried without jury) ; the trial was dragged out
for four years, while they were held in prison, during all the
succeeding wave of struggle, before even sentence was pro¬
nounced. Besides representing the decisive leadership of the
trade unions and of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Party, three
of the leaders arrested were also members of the All-India
Congress Committee or elected Executive of the National
Congress. Thus the working class was decapitated, and the

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 325

strongest and most clear-headed and determined leaders of the
left, with a real mass basis, removed, before the struggle in the
hands of the Congress leadership was allowed to begin. At the
same time was put into force the Public Safety Ordinance by
decree of the Viceroy, directed against the militant forces.

On the eve of the critical approaching Congress and year
of struggle, Gandhi was elected President. He showed, how¬
ever, his skilful appreciation of the existing situation and rela¬
tion of forces by standing down and nominating for election
in his place the leader of the youth and of the Independence
League, who had expressed socialist sympathies, Jawaharlal
Nehru. Gandhi justified his choice by the following char- 1
acterisation of his nominee :

“ No one can surpass him in his love for his country ; he
is brave and passionate, and at this moment these qualities
are very essential. But, although passionate and resolute in
struggle, still he possesses the reason of a statesman. An
adherent of discipline, he has proved in deeds his capability
to submit to decisions with which he is not in agreement.
He is modest and practical enough not to run to extremes.
In his hands the nation is perfectly secure.”

One last effort was made by the moderate leadership to
reach an agreement with imperialism. Following a very
vague statement by the Viceroy on October 31, 1929, which
made a reference to the “ goal of Dominion status ” to be
reached at some unknown future date (a statement which, as
The Times declared on the following day, “ contains no prom¬
ises and reveals no change of policy ”), the party leaders in
India united to issue a response, known as the Delhi Mani¬
festo, wholeheartedly offering co-operation: “ We appreciate
the sincerity underlying the declaration. . . . We hope to be
able to tender our co-operation with His Majesty’s Govern¬
ment in their effort to evolve a scheme for a Dominion con¬
stitution suitable to India’s needs.” The statement was signed
by Gandhi, Mrs. Besant, Motilal Nehru, Sir Tej Bahadur
Sapru, Jawaharlal Nehru and others ; the latter disapproved
of it, and later judged it “ wrong and dangerous ” ; but at the
time he was, as he states, “ talked into signing ” it on the
grounds that, as President-Elect, he would otherwise be break¬
ing unity; a “ soothing letter from Gandhiji ” helped to calm

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

326

his doubts. The Delhi Manifesto was received with delight
by imperialism as a sign of weakening (“ What last night’l
statement means is the scrapping of the programme on which
Congress was to have met at Lahore ” — The Times, November
4, 1929). It produced no practical result save to confuse the
Congress ranks; the subsequent meeting with the Viceroy ]
on the eve of the Congress was fruitless.

At the Lahore Congress, accordingly, at the end of 1929 j
the decision for action was taken. The Nehru Report, cm* 1
bodying Dominion Status, was declared to have lapsed and
“ Purna Swaraj ” or Complete Independence was adopted ai-
henceforth the Creed of the Congress. The Congress author*-
ised the All-India Congress Committee “ whenever it deems
fit, to launch upon a programme of Civil Disobedience, in¬
cluding non-payment of taxes ’. At midnight, as 1930 was
ushered in, the Flag of Indian Independence (red, white and
green — later, the red was withdrawn and substituted by
saffron) was unfurled. On January 26, 1930, the first Inde¬
pendence Day was celebrated throughout India in vast demon¬
strations at which the pledge to struggle for complete inde¬
pendence was read out, proclaiming it “ a crijne against man
and God to submit any longer ” to British rule, and declaring
the conviction that “ if we can but withdraw our voluntary
help and stop payment of taxes, without doing violence even
Under provocation, the end of this inhuman rule is assured ”,

What was to be the aim of the struggle that now opened?
What was to be the plan of campaign? What were to be the '
minimum conditions which would be regarded as justifying a
settlement ? In what way was such irresistible pressure to be
brought on the British Government as to compel “ the end
of this inhuman rule”? On all these questions there wal
from the outset no clearness.

Complete independence might appear to have been the
defined aim of the campaign, and was probably so regarded
by the majority of the Congress membership and by the masse*
who responded to the Congress call. Indeed, the recorded
last dying words of Motilal Nehru, who died on the eve of the
Irwin-Gandhi Agreement, appear to suggest that this had
been his conception of the struggle: “ Let me die, if die I
must, in the lap of a free India. Let me sleep my last sleep(
not in a subject country, but in a free one.”

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 327

This was not, however, the conception of Gandhi. Im¬
mediately after Lahore he published a statement, through the
New York World of January 9, that “ the independence resolu¬
tion need frighten nobody ” (repeated in his letter to the
Viceroy in March), and on January 30, through his paper
Young India, he made an offer of Eleven Points, covering various
reforms (rupee ratio of is. 4 d., total prohibition, reduction of
land revenue and military expenditure, protective tariff on
foreign cloth, etc.) in return for which civil disobedience would
be called off. The publication of the Eleven Points on the
eve of the struggle served to intimate to the other side that the
claim for independence was to be regarded as only a bargain¬
ing counter, a kind of conventional maximum at the opening
of a traditional bazaar haggling, which could be placed on
one side in return for substantial concessions.

The strategy of the campaign was equally unclear. Once
again the Congress Committee meeting at Sabarmati in
February, 1930, placed power in the hands of “ Mahatma
Gandhi and those working with him ” (not any elected organ of
the Congress) to lead and control the campaign, on the grounds
that “ civil disobedience must be initiated and controlled by
those who believe in non-violence ... as an article of faith
But what were to be the lines of the campaign which was thus
handed over without directives from the elected Congress leader-
hip ? Subhas Bose writes, referring to the Lahore Congress :

“ On behalf of the left wing a resolution was moved, by
the writer, to the effect that the Congress should aim at set¬
ting up a parallel Government in the country, and to that end
should take up the task of organising the workers, peasants
and youths. This resolution was defeated, with the result
that though the Congress accepted the goal of complete
independence as its objective, no plan was laid down for
reaching that goal — nor was any programme of work
adopted for the coming year. A more ridiculous state of
affairs could not be imagined.”

(Subhas Bose, “ The Indian Struggle ”, p. 200.)

Jawaharlal Nehru writes:

“ Still we were vague about the future. In spite of the en¬
thusiasm shown at the Congress session, no one knew what the
response of the country would be to a programme of action.

328 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

We had burned our boats and could not go back, but the
country ahead of us was an almost strange uncharted land.”

(Jawaharlal Nehru, “ Autobiography ”, p. 202.)
The official Congress History rebukes those who demanded
to know the plan of campaign :

“ Those gathered at Sabarmati inquired of Gandhi about
his plans. It was but right that they should do so, although
nobody would have asked Lord Kitchener or Marshal Foch
or von Hindenburg to unfold their plans on the eve of the
Great War. Plans they had, but they might not reveal
them. It was not so with Satyagraha. There was no
privacy about our plans. But they were not clear-cut
either. They would unfold themselves, much as the path
on a misty morning reveals itself to a fast-moving motor,
almost from yard to yard. The Satyagrahi carried a search¬
light on his forehead. It shows the way for the next step.”

(Official “ History of the National Congress ”, p. 628.)

Everything thus depended on Gandhi’s conception of the
campaign. The country and its fortunes were handed over
to his guidance.

It is evident that two opposing conceptions of the campaign
were possible, according to the conception of the aim. Either
it was to be a decisive struggle of all the forces of the Indian
people for the ending of British rule and the establishment of
complete independence (“ A Fight to the Finish ” in the terms
of the official Congress History’s chapter-heading for the
struggle), or it was intended to be a limited and regulated
demonstration of mass pressure with a view to securing better
terms and concessions from British rule. The former was
clearly the conception of the Lahore Congress, and what the
masses of the people in India were expecting. But if this were
the aim, to undertake so gigantic a task and reduce to impo¬
tence a formidable opponent, it is evident that any hope of
success depended on rapidly throwing the maximum forces
into the offensive with a view to overwhelming the opposing
forces before any effective counter-measures could be taken:
the calling of a General Strike, with the entire weight of the
Congress and working-class movement behind it, the calling
of the entire peasantry to a No-Tax and No-Rent campaign,
and the setting up of a parallel National Government with its

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 329

organs, courts, Volunteer Corps, etc., throughout the country.
Such a campaign, in the then heightened state of national and
mass feeling, could have, if conducted with extreme speed and
resoluteness, stood a reasonable chance of mobilising the mass
of the people, isolating imperialism (the Garhwali mutiny, and
the experience of Peshawar and Sholapur showed the great
possibilities of this), and winning independence.

This was not the conception of Gandhi. Indeed, it is clear
from all his expressions at the time and after that his main
problem was how to prevent such a development of the
struggle. In an article in May, 193 1 , he explained that he pre¬
ferred defeat to victory if the price of victory should be infringe¬
ment “ by a hair’s breadth ” of his doctrine of non-violence:

“ I would welcome even utter failure with non-violence
unimpaired, rather than depart from it by a hair’s breadth
to achieve a doubtful success.”

(Gandhi, in May, 1931, quoted in The Times , May 8, 1 93 1 .)

In his letter to the Viceroy in March, 1930, Gandhi made
clear his analysis of the forces underlying the struggle, and his
purpose in undertaking its leadership :

“ The party of violence is gaining ground and making
itself felt. ... It is my purpose to set in motion that force
(non-violence) as well against the organised violence force
of the British rule as the unorganised violence force of the
growing party of violence. To sit still would be to give
rein to both the forces above mentioned.”

(Gandhi, letter to the Viceroy, March 2, 1930.)
Thus on the eve of rising mass struggle Gandhi proclaimed
the fight on two fronts, not only against British rule, but
against the internal enemy in India. This conception of the
fight on two fronts corresponds to the role of the Indian
bourgeoisie, alarmed as it sees the ground sinking beneath
its feet with the growing conflict of imperialism and the mass
movement, compelled to undertake leadership of the struggle,
despite the “ mad risk ” (in Gandhi’s phrase in his letter to
the Viceroy), in order to hold it within bounds (“ to sit still
would be to give rein to both the forces above mentioned ”),
and seeking to conciliate both with the magic wand of “ non¬
violence ”. However, “ non-violence ”, like the notorious “ non¬
intervention ” of later days practised by the democratic Powers
l 2

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

330

in relation to Spain, was “ one-way non-violence" . It was “non-
violence ” for the Indian masses, but not for imperialism, which
practised violence to its heart’s content — and won the battle.1

Gandhi’s strategy corresponded to this conception of the
struggle. Given this understanding, that it was not a strategy
intended to lead to the victory of independence, but to find 1
the means in the midst of a formidable revolutionary wave to
maintain leadership of the mass movement and yet place the
maximum bounds and restraints upon it, it was a skilful and
able strategy. This was shown already in his brilliant choice '
of the first objective of the campaign and the method of con¬
ducting it. He decided to lead the fight against the salt
monopoly of the Government. This diverted the fight from
the possibility of participation by the industrial working class,
the one force which Gandhi has made clear in every utterance
that he fears in India ; it was capable of enlisting the support
and popular interest of the peasantry, while diverting them
from any struggle against the landlords. To make assurance
doubly sure, Gandhi intended at first to confine the campaign
to himself and a small band of chosen disciples :

“ So far as I am concerned, my intention is to start the
movement only through the inmates of the Ashrama and
those who have submitted to its discipline and assimilated
its methods.”

(Gandhi, in Young India, February 27, 1930.)

So followed the march to Dandi, on the seashore, by Gandhi
and his seventy-eight hand-picked followers, dragging on
through three precious weeks, with the news-reel cameras of
the world clicking away, while the masses were called on to
wait expectant. The enormous publicity which was given to
this Salt March through the Press, the cinema and every other

1 Gandhi’s object in undertaking the non-co-operation movement in
1930 was made clear by him in his statements and correspondence. Thus
his disciple C. F. Andrews records :

“ Letters have reached me from him which have given me his own
personal reasons ; and he had also explained in the Press the grounds for
taking such a seemingly desperate action. He wrote to me, for instance,
that the violence of the Government of India in its repressive policy had
been increasing day by day, and that it had induced a violent reaction —
especially in Young India. The only way to meet such a situation was
to forestall it by a campaign of non-violence and himself take the lead
in it however great the risk.”

(C. F. Andrews, in the Spectator, September 27, 1930.)

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 33I

device, was regarded by the Congress leadership as a triumph
of strategy for awakening and mobilising the masses; but,
while it is undoubtedly true that it did help to perform this
function for the more backward elements among the masses,
the free encouragement and permission given by the im¬
perialist authorities for this publicity, in striking contrast to
their later attitude (and to their very alert arrest of Subhas
Bose, the leading left nationalist, even before Independence
Day, before the struggle opened), was evidently not simple
naivete and failure to understand its significance, but, on the
contrary, very sharp understanding of its significance and
direct help to ensure the diversion of the mass movement into
the channels which were being prepared for it by Gandhi.

Nevertheless, the moment the three weeks were completed
with the ceremonial boiling of salt by Gandhi on the seashore
on April 6 (not followed by arrest), the overwhelming mass
movement which broke loose throughout the country took the
leadership on both sides by surprise. The official instructions
given were confined to the most limited and relatively harm¬
less forms of civil disobedience : violation of the Salt Law, boy¬
cott of foreign cloth, picketing of the foreign cloth shops and
Government liquor shops. Gandhi’s conception of the move¬
ment was shown in the instructions given by him on April 9 :

“ Our path has already been chalked out for us. Let
every village fetch or manufacture contraband salt, sisters
should picket liquor-shops, opium dens and foreign cloth
dealers’ shops. Young and old in every home should ply
the takli and spin and get woven heaps of yarn every day.
Foreign cloth should be burnt. Hindus should eschew un-
touchability. Hindus, Mussulmans, Sikhs, Parsis and
Christians should all achieve heart unity. Let the majority
rest content with what remains after the minorities have been
satisfied. Let students leave Government schools and
colleges, and Government servants resign their service and
devote themselves to the service of the people, and we shall
soon find that Purna Swaraj will come knocking at our doors.”

The mass movement which developed already in April went
considerably beyond these simple limits, with rising strikes,
.powerful mass demonstrations, the Chittagong Armoury Raid
in Bengal, the incidents at Peshawar, which was in the hands

332

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

of the people for ten days, and the beginnings of spontaneous
no-rent movements by the peasants in a number of localities,
especially in the United Provinces, where the Congress vainly
sought to mediate on a basis of 50 per cent, payment of rents.

Most significant for the whole future was the refusal of the
Garhwali soldiers at Peshawar to fire on the people. Following
the arrest of local leaders, armoured cars were sent to cow the
angry mass demonstrations ; one armoured car was burned,
its occupants escaping; thereupon wholesale firing on the
crowds was followed by hundreds of deaths and casualties.
Two platoons of the Second Battalion of the 18th Royal Garh¬
wali Rifles, Hindu troops in the midst of a Moslem crowd,
refused the order to fire, broke ranks, fraternised with the
crowd, and a number handed over their arms. Immediately
after this, the military and police were completely withdrawn
from Peshawar ; from April 25 to May 4 the city was in the
hands of the people, until powerful British forces, with air
squadrons, were concentrated to “recapture” Peshawar;
there was no resistance. The Government subsequently
refused all demands for an enquiry into the incident. Seven¬
teen men of the Garhwali Rifles were subjected by court-
martial to savage sentences, one to transportation for life,
one to fifteen years’ rigorous imprisonment, and fifteen to
terms varying from three to ten years.

The example of the Garhwali soldiers, who refused to fire
upon their fellow-countrymen, might have been thought, to
put it at its lowest, at least a triumphant demonstration of
“ non-violence ”, which should have been dear to the heart
of Gandhi. This was not, however, Gandhi’s view. This
was a non-violence which really threatened the foundations
of British rule. In the Irwin-Gandhi Agreement the clause
for the release of prisoners specifically excluded the Garhwali
men. The official Congress History records in detail many
petty terrorist acts and the national sentiment aroused by
them. But the Garhwali episode finds no place in the official
record. Through the years the Garhwali men were left to
serve their sentences ; and it was not until the latter part of
1937 that they were at last released through the influence of
tbe Congress Ministers. Their memory lives in the hearts of
the people, and will rank high in the future annals of free
India, when the memory of many of the politicians will have

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 333

sunk lower. Gandhi subsequently explained to a French
interviewer, during his visit to the Round Table Conference
in London, his reasons for disapproving of the Garhwali men :

“ A soldier who disobeys an order to fire breaks the oath
which he has taken and renders himself guilty of criminal
disobedience. I cannot ask officials and soldiers to disobey ;
for when I am in power, I shall in all likelihood make use
of those same officials and those same soldiers. If I taught
them to disobey I should be afraid that they might do the
same when I am in power.”

(Gandhi, reply to the French journalist Charles
Petrasch on the question of the Garhwali soldiers,
Monde, February 20, 1932.)

This sentence (which may be recommended to the study of
every pacifist admirer of Gandhi), no less clearly than the
previous Bardoli decision, throws a flood of light on the real
meaning of “ non-violence ”.

When it became clear that the power of the mass movement
was exceeding the limits set it, and that the authority of Gandhi,
who had been left at liberty, was in danger of waning, on May 5
the Government arrested Gandhi. The official justification for
the arrest was stated in the Government communique :

“ While Mr. Gandhi has continued to deplore these out¬
breaks of violence, his protests against his unruly followers
have become weaker and weaker, and it is evident that he
is unable to control them. . . . Every provision will be
made for his health and comfort during his detention.”

The response to the arrest was shown in the wave of hartals
and mass strikes all over India. In the industrial town of
Sholapur in the Bombay Presidency, with 140,000 inhabitants,
of whom 50,000 were textile operatives, the workers held pos¬
session of the town for a week, replacing the police and estab¬
lishing their own administration, until martial law was
proclaimed on May 12. “ Even the Congress leaders had lost

control over the mob, which was seeking to establish a regime
of its own,” reported the correspondent of The Times on May
14, 1930. “ They took charge of the administration ”, re¬

ported the Poona Star, “ and tried to establish their own laws
and regulations.” Contemporary evidence bears witness to
the complete order maintained.

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

334

Imperialist repression was limitless. Ordinances followed
one another in rapid succession, creating a situation com*
parable to martial law. In June the Congress and all its
organisations were declared illegal. Official figures recorded
60,000 civil resisters sentenced in less than a year up to
the Irwin-Gandhi Agreement in the spring of 1931. These
figures are certainly an under-estimate, since they omit the
masses sentenced for offences of intimidation, rioting, etc.,
and cover only those recognised by the Government as
political prisoners. The very detailed Nationalist records
place the total at 90,000: “in 1930-31, within a short
interval of ten months, ninety thousand men, women and
children were sentenced ” (“ History of the National Con¬
gress ”, p. 876). All this took place under a “Labour”
Government. Well might the reactionary Observer declare
on April 27, 1930, that it was a “providential chance” that
Labour was in power and that “in view of India the over¬
rising public necessity is to keep the Labour Ministry in
power ”.

Imprisonment was the least of the forms of repression. The
jails were filled to overflowing, and it was clear that wholesale
imprisonment was powerless to check the movement. There¬
fore the principal weapon employed was physical terrorism.
The records of indiscriminate lathi charges, beating up, firing
on unarmed crowds, killing and wounding of men and women,
and punitive expeditions made an ugly picture.1 The strictest
measures were employed to cast a veil of censorship over the
whole proceedings ; but the careful records of the Congress
provide volumes of certified and attested facts and incidents
which throw some light on the brutality employed.

Nevertheless, the power of the movement during 1930,
exceeding every calculation of the authorities, and growing ill
spite of repression, began to raise the most serious alarm itl
the imperialist camp, which already found open expression
by the summer of 1930, especially in the British trading
community, who were hard hit by the boycott. This was
especially noticeable in Bombay, where was the centre of
strength of the industrial working class, where repression was

1 According to an official answer in the Legislative Assembly on July 14,
1930, in 24 cases of firing on the public from April 1 to that date there
were 103 killed and 420 wounded.

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 335

most severe, but where the movement was strongest, and again
and again held possession of the streets, despite repeated
police charges, in mass demonstrations which the Congress
leaders vainly begged to disperse, and in which the red flags
were conspicuous beside the Congress flags, or even pre¬
dominated. “ Visitors here from Calcutta and other big
cities ”, wrote the Observer correspondent on June 29, “ are
frankly amazed at the state to which Bombay has been re¬
duced.” “ But for the presence of troops and armed police ”,
declared “ A letter from Bombay ”, published in the Spectator
of July 5, “ the Government of Bombay would be overthrown
in a day, and the administration would be taken over by the
Congress with the assent of all.” The British business men
in Bombay joined with the Indian business men, through the
Millowners’ Association (with a one-third European element)
and the Chamber of Commerce, in demanding immediate
self-government for India on a Dominion basis. The amazing
spectacle was witnessed of the Times of India (Bombay)
clamouring for responsible parliamentary Government at the
Centre. By July 6 the Observer was reporting with alarm
the “ demoralisation of Europeans ” in India:

“ Except in the columns of the Calcutta Statesman
defeatism prevailed, and only too well-informed rumours
circulated of negotiations between British business men of
Calcutta and Bombay and Congress elements for permanent
political surrenders in return for immediate alleviation
of the boycott and other temporary evils. . . . The de¬
moralisation of Europeans. . . . But this demoralisation is
by no means general, and in Calcutta there is a strong
public opinion against it.” {Observer, July 6, 1930.)

By August the Calcutta correspondent of the Observer was
reporting under the heading “ Weakness in Bombay ”:

“ The news from Bombay that some of the British-
managed mills have had to accept the Congress terms and
that a prominent citizen is therefore resigning his com¬
mission in the Bombay Light Horse has shocked opinion
here. So has the collapse of the Bombay branch of the
European Association, which by a substantial majority de¬
clined to commit itself to the Simon Report because it was not

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

acceptable to Indian opinion. The Bombay branch has also
withdrawn its candidate for the Round Table Conference.’

( Observer , August 24, 1930.)

Thus a situation of “ defeatism ” and “ demoralisation ”

bordering on panic, despite all the bluster and repression,
was beginning to show itself in the imperialist camp ; and it
became essential for imperialism at all costs to negotiate a
settlement. On the basis of the struggle and sacrifices of the
Indian people the Congress leadership held a strong hand.
The only hopes of imperialism for salvation were now placed
in the moderate national leadership, whose alarm at the ex¬
tension and unknown possibilities of the mass struggle they
knew to be genuine. After an interview with Gandhi in
September, Professor H. G. Alexander, Professor of Inter¬
national Relations at Selly Oak College, Birmingham, re¬
ported the views of Gandhi :

“ Even in the seclusion of his prison he is acutely con¬
scious that such embitterment is developing, and for that
reason he would welcome a return to peace and co-opera¬
tion as soon as it could be honestly obtained. . . . His
influence is still great, but more dangerous and uncon¬
trollable forces are gathering strength daily.”

(Professor H. G. Alexander, “ Mr. Gandhi’s Present
Outlook ”, in the Spectator, January 3, 1931.)

Thus the alarm grew on both sides ; and on the basis of this
mutual alarm there was the possibility of a settlement —
against the Indian people.

Negotiations were begun in the autumn of 1930, but without
result. On January 20, 1931, MacDonald as Prime Minister
made the declaration at the Round Table Conference :

“ I pray that by our labours India will possess the only
thing which she now lacks to give her the status of a Domin'
ion among the British Commonwealth of Nations — the re
sponsibility and the cares, the burdens and the difficulties, but
the pride and the honour of Responsible Self-Government.”

The bait was thus held out in a rotund phrase which in hard
practice committed the Government to nothing, as subsequent
events were to show. The Round Table Conference was then
adjourned to enable the Congress to attend.

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 337

On January 26 Gandhi and the Congress Working Com¬
mittee were released unconditionally and given freedom to
meet. Gandhi declared that he left prison with “ an abso¬
lutely open mind Prolonged negotiations followed. On
March 4 the Irwin-Gandhi Agreement was signed, and the
struggle was declared provisionally suspended.

The Irwin-Gandhi Agreement secured not a single aim of
the Congress struggle (not even the repeal of the Salt Tax).
Civil Disobedience was to be withdrawn. Congress was to
participate in the Round Table Conference, which it had \
sworn to boycott. Not a single concrete step to self-govern¬
ment was granted. The basis of discussion at the Round
Table Conference was to be a Federal Constitution with
“ Indian responsibility ” — but there were to be “ reser¬
vations of safeguards in the interests of India The
Ordinances were to be withdrawn and political prisoners re¬
leased — but not prisoners guilty of “ violence ” or “ incitement
to violence ” or soldiers guilty of disobeying orders. Freedom
of boycott of foreign goods was to be allowed — but not “ ex¬
clusively against British goods ”, not “ for political ends ”, not
with any picketing that might be regarded as involving “ coer¬
cion, intimidation, restraint, hostile demonstration, obstruc¬
tion to the public ”. And so on with the clauses, which gave
with one hand and took away with another. The maximum
gain was the right of peaceful boycott of foreign cloth — the one
positive element which very clearly pointed to the decisive
interests on the Indian side behind the agreement.

The fact that the British Government had been compelled
to sign a public Treaty with the leader of the National Con¬
gress, which it had previously declared an unlawful association
and sought to smash, was undoubtedly a tremendous demon¬
stration of the strength of the national movement. This fact
produced at first a widespread sense of elation and victory,
except among the more politically conscious sections, who
understood what had happened and saw that all the struggle
and sacrifice had been thrown away at the negotiating table.
Only slowly, as the meaning of the terms began to be under¬
stood, the realisation dawned that nothing whatever had been
gained. All the aims of complete independence and no com¬
promise with imperialism, so loudly proclaimed at Lahore,
had gone up in smoke. Even Gandhi’s Eleven Points, which

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

338

had previously been an offer of a compromise surrender behind
the back of the Congress, had now vanished; not one had
been conceded. The Congress was now reduced to accepting
the Round Table Conference, which it had previously refused,
and in which it could have participated anyway without a
struggle (save that it could have obtained far better repre¬
sentation, had it chosen to demand this at the start).

The Irwin-Gandhi Agreement thus repeated the Bardoli
experience on an enlarged scale. Once again the movement
was suddenly and mysteriously called off at the moment when
it was reaching its height (“ the suggestion of the impending
collapse of our movement is entirely false ; the movement was
showing no signs of slackening ” — Gandhi, interview to Monde,
February 20, 1932, on the situation at the time of the Agree¬
ment). “ Such a victory has seldom been vouchsafed to any
Viceroy,” jubilated The Times on March 5. “ The Congress
has never made any bid for victory,” explained Gandhi in his
statement to the astonished pressmen on March 5 justifying
the Agreement (Gandhi, “ Speeches and Writings ”, p. 778),
and in this respect expressing certainly the truth of his strategy.
Later, he explained his thought further. “We should give
up the attempt to secure a Swaraj Constitution at the present
moment,” he wrote in Toung India in June, 1931 ; “ we can
gain our end without political power.” Alternatively, he ex¬
plained, in an interview to the Press on March 6, that Purna
Swaraj really means “ disciplined self-rule from within ” and
by no means excludes “ association with England ” (“ associa¬
tion ” is delicate — especially when it means “ association ”
with the sharp end of a bayonet) . So the phrases were poured
out, by Gandhi on the one side as by MacDonald on the other,
to confuse the plain aim of independence as proclaimed at
Lahore (“ complete freedom from British domination and
British imperialism ”) in a wealth of legal interpretation and
theological casuistry, until it was difficult to know whether to
award the palm to Gandhi or to MacDonald, both masters of
the art of the bewildering phrase and the higher spiritual
appeal to conceal the realities of capitulation and slavery.

The Karachi Congress, hastily convened the same month*
unanimously endorsed the Agreement. Jawaharlal Nehru
was given the task of moving it, “ not without great mental

conflict and physical distress ”. “ Was it for this ”, he thought.

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 33g

“ that our people had behaved so gallantly for a year? Were
all our brave words and deeds to end in this ? ” He felt, how¬
ever, that it would only be “ personal vanity ” to express his
dissent. Subhas Bose, who was sharply critical, felt that it
was not possible to oppose the Agreement at the Congress, on
the grounds that this might appear as a breach of national
unity. The Agreement was “ not popular ”, according to
Jawaharlal Nehru’s account; but few voices were found to
oppose it at the Congress. One delegate said that if anyone
but Gandhi had brought forward such an Agreement, he
would have been thrown into the sea ; but such an expression
in the public sessions was exceptional. The fatal breach be¬
tween the rigid Congress machinery and the wider mass move¬
ment revealed itself at Karachi: Subhas Bose notes that the
opponents of the Agreement “ would not have much support
from the elected delegates who alone could vote at the Congress,
though among the general public, and particularly the youths,
they had larger support ” (“ The Indian Struggle ”, p. 233).
There was no one to voice this “ larger support ” inside the
Congress. This collapse of Left Nationalism at the Karachi
Congress underlined the strength of Gandhi’s position.

In return, a concession was made to Left Nationalism by
the adoption of a progressive social and economic programme,
embodied in a “ Fundamental Rights ” resolution, which in¬
cluded a basic democratic charter of an advanced type,
nationalisation of key industries and transport, labour rights
and agrarian reform. This programme, which remains valid,
marked an important step forward for the Congress. It was
not, however, compensation for the capitulation embodied
in the Irwin-Gandhi Agreement.

Outside the Congress, sharp criticism of the Agreement was
expressed from the youth and from the working-class move¬
ment. This was shown in numerous resolutions from youth
organisations and conferences, and in the hostile demonstra¬
tions of Bombay workers against Gandhi on his departure
for the Round Table Conference. Such demonstrations, The
Times noted, would have been unthinkable ten years earlier.

Disillusionment rapidly spread to wider circles. The role
of Gandhi at the Round Table Conference in London during
1931 (and among the devotees of higher ethical thought in
England who crowded round him in the intervals in innumer-

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

{

340

able little receptions and gatherings to hear the message of the
World Teacher) was an unhappy farce, over which a veil is
best drawn. The honour of the Congress was lowered by its
inclusion as an item in this motley array of Government pup¬
pets brought like captives to imperial Rome to display their
confusion and divisions for the amusement of Westminster
legislators. Gandhi returned, meeting Mussolini on the way.
He brought back no fruits from the Round Table Conference.

On his way back Gandhi expressed the hope that there
would be no need to renew the struggle; from Port Said he
cabled the India Office that he would do all in his power for
peace. He drafted a resolution to this effect immediately on
return. But he reckoned without his host.

Imperialism, once it had secured the whip-hand, was deter¬
mined to use its advantage to the utmost. The “ truce ” from
the outset had been one-sided ; repression had continued.
Gandhi returned in the last days of 1931 to hear a pitiful tale
from his colleagues. He cabled at once to the Viceroy, beg¬
ging for an interview. It was refused. Imperialism had util¬
ised every day of that nine months’ truce (while the comedy
had been enacted in London) to complete its grim prepara¬
tions for a decisive battle. Sir John Anderson, with experience
of the “ Black and Tan ” regime in Ireland, had been nomi¬
nated Governor of Bengal to take in hand the arrangements.
There was to be no surprise this time. The Congress was to
be taught a lesson. It was to be a fight to a finish, with
unconditional surrender as the only terms.

Swift and sharp the blow fell on January 4, 1932. On the
same day negotiations were broken; the Viceroy issued his
Manifesto ; Gandhi was arrested ; Ordinances appeared in a
batch (no dribbling out this time, one by one, as they were
thought of, as in 1930, but straight from the pigeon-holes on the
first day) ; all the principal Congress leaders and organisers were
arrested all over the country ; the Congress and all its organisa¬
tions were declared illegal, their Press banned, their premises,
funds and property confiscated., A triumph of organisation.

The Government made clear that the object was a knock-out
blow. Sir Samuel Hoare informed the House of Commons
that the Ordinances were “ very drastic and severe ” and that
there was to be no “ drawn battle ” this time. Sir Harry
Haig, Home Member of the Government of India, stated that

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 34I

“ we are not playing a game with artificial rules ”, and that
so far as the Government was concerned there was no time
limit. The spokesmen of the Bombay Government informed
the Legislature that “ war is not fought with gloves on
The Congress leadership was taken by surprise. This was
such a sudden change from the atmosphere of the Round
Table Conference. They had made no preparations. In 1930
the Congress had been on the offensive. Now it was thrown
on the defensive. They had not realised the price of the
Irwin-Gandhi Agreement. Dr. Syed Mahmud, of the Congress
Working Committee, informed the India League Delegation :

“ The world does not know anything about the resolution
that Mahatma Gandhi drafted and proposed before the
Working Committee. The Mahatma was bent on co¬
operation. . . . The Government did not want co-opera¬
tion. From my own inside knowledge I can say that the
Congress was not prepared for the conflict. We had hopes
that the Mahatma would bring peace somehow on his
return from London.”

(“ Condition of India ”, Report of India League
Delegation, 1933, p. 27.)

He added “ that he and his colleagues had definite information
that the Government’s plans for repression were ready in
November while Gandhi was still in London, and that the
Government’s sudden blow at first staggered the Congress ”.

Repression this time, in 1932-33, far exceeded the level of
1 930-3 u In the first four months, according to the public
report of Pandit Malaviya on May 2, 1932, there were 80,000
arrests. After fifteen months, by the end of March, 1933,
according to the report to the illegal session of the Congress
at Calcutta in April, 1933, the total had reached 120,000
arrests. Some record of the accompanying wholesale violence,
physical outrages, shooting and beating up, punitive ex¬
peditions, collective fines on villages and seizure of lands and
property of villagers can be found in the India League
Delegation Report, “ Condition of India ”, issued in 1933.

The Government had counted on a fight to a finish in six
weeks. The toughness of the national movement was such
that the battle, despite the unfavourable conditions, dragged
on for twenty-nine months before the final surrender. But it

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

342

was a soldiers’ battle without strategic leadership. Under the
conditions of illegality and violent repression the task of leader¬
ship was in any case sufficiently difficult. But it was not ren¬
dered easier by the actions of Gandhi and the High Command,
whose role amounted, not merely to abdication, but to repudia¬
tion of leadership. Orders were actually issued against
secrecy (under illegal conditions !) as a perversion of Congress
principles. A resolution was issued to the Zemindars (land¬
lords) to assure them that no campaign would be approved
against their interests. By the summer of 1932 Gandhi aban¬
doned all public interest in the national struggle, and devoted
himself to the cause of the Harijans (untouchables). His
dramatic “ fast unto death ” in September was directed, not
against the repression, not to any object of the life-and-death
struggle of the national movement going on, but to prevent
the scheme of separate representation for the “ depressed
classes It ended, neither in death nor in the attainment of
its objective, but in the Poona Pact, by which the number of
reserved seats for the “ depressed classes ” was doubled. The
episode served to divert attention from the national struggle,
of which he was still supposed to be the responsible leader.

In May, 1933, Gandhi began a new fast, directed, not
against the Government, but to change the heart of his
countrymen. He described it as a “ heart-prayer for purifica¬
tion of myself and my associates for greater vigilance and
watchfulness in connection with the Harijan cause ”. The
delighted Government released him unconditionally. Im¬
mediately the Acting-President, on the recommendation of
Gandhi, announced the suspension of civil disobedience for
six weeks, not on the basis of any terms reached with the
Government, or even hopes of terms, but on the grounds that,
as Gandhi said, the country would be in “ a state of terrible
suspense ” during his fast, and it would be therefore better to
hold up the campaign for it (even if the Government did not
hold up its repression).1

1 It was the culminating blow of this decision which led Subhas Bos*
and V. Patel, who were then outside India, to issue a Manifesto declaring t
“ The latest action of Mr. Gandhi in suspending Civil Disobedience is a
confession of failure. . . . We are clearly of the opinion that Mr. Gandhi
as a political leader has failed. The time has come for a radical re¬
organisation of the Congress on a new principle, with a new method,
for which a new leader is essential.”

THREE STAGES OF NATIONAL STRUGGLE 343

In July, 1933, after a request by Gandhi for an interview
with the Viceroy had been refused unless civil disobedience
were first finally ended, the Congress leadership decided to end
mass civil disobedience and replace it by individual civil dis¬
obedience. At the same time the Acting-President issued
orders dissolving all Congress organisations. The Govern¬
ment showed no response save to increase its repression against
the individual civil resisters. In August Gandhi was arrested
anew, but was released before the end of the month, following
a fast. During the autumn, having decided to abstain from
political activity for a period on conscientious grounds, he
devoted himself to a Harijan tour. Meanwhile the struggle
dragged on, neither ended, nor led.

It was not until May, 1934, that the final end came to the
struggle which had opened with such magnificent power in
1930. In April Gandhi had issued a statement explaining his
view of the reasons for the failure of the movement. The
fault lay with the masses. “ I feel that the masses have not
yet received the message of Satyagraha owing to its adultera¬
tion in the process of transmission. It has become clear to
me that spiritual instruments suffer in their potency when
their use is taught through non-spiritual media. . . . The
indifferent civil resistance of many . . . has not touched the
hearts of the rulers.” Even the transition from mass civil dis¬
obedience to individual civil disobedience had not solved this
problem of the uncontrollable character of any mass move¬
ment. The conclusion was drawn with faultless logic. “ Sat¬
yagraha needs to be confined to one qualified person at a
time.” “ In the present circumstances only one, and that
myself, should for the time being bear the responsibility of
civil disobedience.” Such was the final reductio ad absurdum
of the Gandhist theory of “ non-violent non-co-operation ” as
the path of liberation for the Indian people.

In May, 1934, the All-India Congress Committee was
allowed to meet at Patna to end civil disobedience uncon¬
ditionally (with the solitary exception recommended by
Gandhi). There were no terms and no concessions from the
Government. At the same time decisions were taken, for
which the preliminary steps had already been prepared, for
the new stage of contesting the coming elections directly on
behalf of the Congress.

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

344

In June, 1934, the Government lifted the ban on the Con¬
gress, but not yet on many of its subsidiary organisations,
youth organisations, peasants’ unions and the Red Shirts of
the North-West Frontier Province. In July, 1 934, the Govern¬
ment proclaimed the Communist Party of India illegal. The
new stage was opening.

In the autumn of 1934 Gandhi resigned from membership j
of the Congress, his work for the time being accomplished. In
a parting statement he explained that “ there is a growing and
vital difference of outlook between many Congressmen and 1
myself”. It was clear that for “ the majority of Congress¬
men ” non-violence was not “ a fundamental creed ”, but only 1
“ a policy ”. Socialist groups were growing in the Congress
in numbers and influence : “ if they gain ascendancy in the
! I Congress, as they well may, I cannot remain in the Congress ”, 1
The new stage was making itself felt ; and it was unwelcome
to the old ideas.

Gandhi left the Congress. But he did not leave until he had j
bequeathed to it a reactionary revision of its Constitution and I
organisation, which considerably hampers its further progres- I
sive development. And he remained the most powerful guiding j
influence behind the scenes, ready in case of need to assume I
direct leadership anew. With the new crisis of 1939-40 he I
has again assumed direct leadership.

The unhappy final ending of the great wave of struggle of I
1 930-34 should not blind us for a moment to its epic achieve¬
ment, its deep and lasting lessons and its gigantic permanent
gains. The reasons, in the tactics and methods pursued, for
the temporary failure of a movement which had at its command
such limitless resources of popular support, enthusiasm, devo¬
tion and sacrifice, and which was undoubtedly within reach
of success, constitute a lesson which needs to be learned and
studied again and again for the future. Those reasons have
been implicit in this narrative. But the national movement
can be proud of the record of those years. Imperialism
dreamed in those years by every device in the modern armoury
of repression to smash and cow the people of India into sub¬
mission to its will, and to exterminate the movement for inde-|
pendence. It failed. Within two years, after all those heavy j
blows, the national movement was advancing again, stronger
than ever. The struggle had not been in vain. The furnace

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 345

of those years of struggle helped to forge and awaken a new
and greater national unity, self-confidence, pride and deter¬
mination. The fruits are being reaped in the advance to-day.
The final struggle is still in front. But there is a higher degree
of readiness gathering for it than ever before.

The record of these recent years of advance of the national
movement will be best considered when we come to the
question of the new Constitution.

Chapter XIII : RISE OF LABOUR
AND SOCIALISM

“ The Indian proletariat has already matured sufficiently to wage a
class-conscious and political mass struggle — and that being the case, Anglo-
Russian methods in India are played out.” — Lenin in 1908.

Thirty years ago it was possible for a leader of
socialism in Britain — one who had done pioneer service in the
organisation and socialist awakening of the British working
class, and who went to India as a friend of the Indian people
and a critic of British rule — to return and write a book on
India without making any mention of the Indian working
class, or even guessing at the possibility of the future existence
of an Indian labour movement (Keir Hardie’s “ India : Im¬
pressions and Suggestions ”, published in 1909). Similarly
in MacDonald’s “ The Awakening of India ”, published in
1910, we find one bare speculation that the Indian industrial
workers might possibly at some future date evolve some form
of “ trade combination ” : “ these combinations will probably
be of a kind midway between the castes of India and the
trade unions of Great Britain ” (p. 179).

This parochial blindness to the decisive future forces of
Indian development was not deliberate. Only a Marxist
understanding could at that time discern below the surface the
real forces that were gathering and their significance for the
future. Lenin already in 1908 had greeted the emergence of
“ the Indian proletariat ” as “ matured sufficiently to wage a
class-conscious and political mass struggle ”, basing this

346 the INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

judgement on the Bombay mill-workers’ political strike in
protest against the imprisonment of Tilak in that year, and
had drawn therefrom the conclusion that this heralded the
doom of British rule in India.

To-day the truth of this insight is being borne out by the
power of events. The old blindness is no longer possible. The
history of the Indian national struggle has shown, with each
succeeding stage, the increased weight and importance of the
role of the working class ; while questions of socialism or com¬
munism are now in the forefront of Indian political discussion.

In the pre-1914 period this role of the working class was still
in the background; it followed, rather than preceded the
national movement ; the only outstanding political action was the
Bombay general strike against the six years’ sentence on Tilak.

In the new period of awakening at the close of the first world
war, the great strike movement of 1918-21 was the harbinger
of the national wave, which finally brought the Congress into
movement in the non-co-operation campaign of 1920-22.

By a decade later the working class was already an inde¬
pendent and organised force, with its own ideology playing a
direct role, although not yet the leading role ; the great strike
movement of 1928, led by the militant class-conscious section
of the proletariat, carried with it the awakening of the youth
and of the petty bourgeoisie, and led to the new wave of
national struggle ; and in that new wave of struggle, during
1 930-34, the bourgeois leadership openly expressed its con¬
ception of the struggle as a fight on two fronts, as much
against a mass uprising from below as against imperialism.

To-day, since the outbreak of the present war, the working
class stands out more clearly than ever before as the decisive
force of the future in Indian politics.

1. Growth of the Industrial Working Class

The industrial working class in India, in the modern sense,
is not numerically large in relation to the population ; but it
is concentrated in the decisive centres, and is the most coherent,
advanced, resolute and basically revolutionary section of the
population.

Lord Chelmsford, speaking on behalf of the British Govern¬
ment at the Council of the League of Nations in October, 1922,
claimed 20 million “ industrial wage-earners ” for India:

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 347

“ It remains to justify India’s specific claim to inclusion
among the eight States of chief industrial importance. Her
claim is based on broad general grounds and does not need
elaborate statistical methods to justify it. She has an indus¬
trial wage-earning population which may be estimated at
roughly twenty millions, and in addition a large wage¬
earning class employed in agricultural work.”

This fantastic claim, seeking to place India among the leading
industrialised countries of the world, was a piece of diplomatic
bluff in order to secure an extra vote in the British Govern¬
ment’s hands at Geneva. The figure of 20 millions was com¬
posed overwhelmingly of hand-workers and domestic indus¬
tries, and bore no relation to modern industry.

Similarly the British Trades Union Congress delegation to
India in 1927-28 estimated in its report a total of over 25
million “ organisable workers ” in India. But of this 25
million no less than 2i| million consisted of the agricultural
proletariat, existing under conditions, not of large-scale capi¬
talist farming (outside the 1 million employed on the planta¬
tions) , but of irregular employment, largely under peasants in
extreme poverty, and offering very little scope for conventional
trade-union organisation (although able to play a very im¬
portant part in the peasant movement). The industrial
“ organisable workers ” in their analysis amounted to only
3 1 millions.

In estimating the strength of the Indian working class, it is
necessary to distinguish between the very large number of
propertyless proletarians and the narrower grouping of indus¬
trial wage-earners in modern industry, who can alone con¬
stitute the decisive, organised, conscious and leading force of
the Indian working class.

There are no available statistics of the extent of the Indian
working class. The 1931 Census Report records:

“ The number of workers employed in organised labour
is extraordinarily low for a population the size of India’s,
and the daily average number of hands employed by estab¬
lishments in British India to which the Factories Act applies
is only 1,553,169. .. .

“ The total India figures for persons employed in planta¬
tions, mines, industry and transport in 1921 was 24,239,555,

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

348

of whom only 2,685,909 were employed in organised estab¬
lishments employing 10 or more employees.

“ The total figure under the same heads in 1931 amounts
to 26,187,689; and if labour in similar establishments is in
the same proportion, it will now number 2,901,776. Figures
of the daily average of persons employed indicate that it has
increased during the last decade at the rate of about 30 per
cent., in which case it would now number 3,500,000.
Probably 5,000,000 may be fairly taken as the figure of
organised labour in India in 1931.”

(Census of India, 1931, Vol. I, Part I, p. 285.)

In the broadest sense, the number of wage-workers in India
may be estimated at about 60 millions. The returns of the
Indian Franchise Committee showed 56 J millions for 1931 :

“ The total number of agricultural labourers, which was
given as 2 1 -5 million in 1921, was shown by the census of 1 93 1
to be over 31-5 million, of whom 23 million were estimated j
by the Indian Franchise Committee in 1931 to be ‘ land¬
less ’, while the total number of non-agricultural labourers, j
as estimated by the Indian Franchise Committee, was 25
million. There are, therefore, about 56-5 million wage I
labourers out of 154 million persons in all occupations in the i
whole of India, or in other words, over 36 per cent, of the I
people in all occupations depend upon wage labour as a
means of livelihood.”

(I.L.O. Report, 1938, “Industrial Labour in India”,
p. 30.)

In the narrower sense of the industrial proletariat in modern
or other than petty industry, the Industrial Census of 1921
reached a total of 2-6 millions employed in establishments em¬
ploying ten or more workers. There has been no later Indus¬
trial Census ; but the estimate of the 1931 Census, given above,
would place the total at about 3! millions. The only exact
records are those of the Factories Act administration; the
latest 1934 Factories Act covers power-driven factories employ¬
ing twenty or more, or, in some cases, ten or more, workers ; the
total in 1935 was 1,610,932 workers. To these should be added
245,000 workers returned as employed in “ large industrial
establishments ” in the Indian States, giving a full total of
1,855,000 workers in modern larger-scale industry in India.

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 349

Taking this as a basis, we reach the following :

Factory workers in medium and larger factories

(on the above basis) . 1,855,000

Miners . 371,000

Railwaymen . 636,000

Water Transport (Dockers, Seamen) . 361,000

Total of above groups .... 3,223,000

These 3^ million represent the kernel of the industrial pro¬
letariat in modern large-scale industry in India to-day. Ex¬
cluded from this total are all the workers in petty industry
(establishments with under ten workers), as well as in larger
enterprises without power-driven machinery (e.g., cigarette¬
making, with, in some cases, over fifty workers). From the
standpoint of the potential strength of the organised labour
movement, we should add the over 1 million workers employed
on the plantations, who are employed in fully large-scale enter¬
prise under the most scientific slave-driving conditions, and
have already shown a high degree of militant activity in
periods of unrest, although so far cut off from all organisation
and held under conditions of complete isolation and subjec¬
tion ; and a proportion of the workers in petty industry and in
the larger unregulated enterprises. The immediate effective
organisable strength of the Indian working class should there¬
fore certainly represent over 5 million workers.

The growth of the industrial proletariat is shown in the
Factories Acts statistics (reflecting also extension of the range
covered by the Acts) :

Number of
Factories.

Average daily
number employed.

1894 .

815

349,810

1902

1.533

541,634

1914

2,936

950,973

1918

3,436

1,122,922

1922

5,i44

1,361,002

1926

7,251

1,518,391

1930 .

8,148

1,528,302

1935

8,831

1,610,932

1936

9,323

1,652,147

35°

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

2. Conditions of the Working Class

Of the conditions of the industrial working class in India
some general picture has been given in Chapter III (see
pp. 54-56). It may be useful to recall the conclusions
reached by the British Trades Union Congress delegation to
India which reported in 1928:

“ All enquiries go to show that the vast majority of
workers in India do not receive more than about is. per
day. In the province of Bengal, which includes the largest
mass of industrial workers, investigators declared that as far
as they could ascertain, 60 per cent, of workers were in re¬
ceipt of wages of not more than is. 2 d. a day in the highest
instance, scaling down to as low as 7 d. to gd. for men and
3 d. to 7 d. in the case of children and women. . . . Our own
enquiries support these figures and, as a matter of fact,
many cases have been quoted to us of daily rates in operation
which descend to 3 \d. for women and 7 d. or even less for
men.”

(A. A. Purcell and J. Hallsworth, “ Report on Labour !
Conditions in India ”, Trades Union Congress,
1928, p. 10.)

The same delegation reported with regard to the housing of
the workers :

“We visited the workers’ quarters wherever we stayed,
and had we not seen them we could not have believed that
such evil places existed. . . . Here is a group of houses in
‘ lines the owner of which charges the tenant of each dwell¬
ing 4J. 6 d. a month as rent. Each house, consisting of one
dark room used for all purposes, living, cooking and sleeping,
is 9 feet by 9 feet, with mud walls and loose-tiled roof, and
has a small open compound in front, a corner of which is
used as a latrine. There is no ventilation in the living room
except by a broken roof or that obtained through the en¬
trance door when open. Outside the dwelling is a long
narrow channel which receives the waste matter of all de¬
scriptions and where flies and other insects abound. . . •
Outside all the houses on the edge of each side of the strip
of land between the ‘ lines ’ are the exposed gulleys, at some

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 35I

places stopped up with garbage, refuse and other waste
matter, giving forth horrible smells repellent in the extreme.

It is obvious that these gulleys are often used as conveniences,
especially by children. . . .

“ The overcrowding and insanitary conditions almost
everywhere prevailing demonstrate the callousness and
wanton neglect of their obvious duties by the authorities
concerned.” (Ibid., pp. 8-9.)

This report was issued eleven years ago. Since then the
British Trades Union Congress has not sent any fiirther dele¬
gation to India.

For a more recent picture, to show how little these conditions
have changed, or have even changed for the worse, we may ■
take the report of the Indian Workers’ Delegate, S. V. Paru-
lekar, to the International Labour Conference at Geneva in
1938:

“ In India the vast majority of workers get a wage which
is not enough to provide them with the meanest necessities
of life. The report of an enquiry into the working-class
budgets in Bombay by Mr. Findlay Shirras in 1921 states
that the industrial worker consumes the maximum cereals
allowed by the Famine Code but less than the diet issued to
criminals in jail under the Bombay Prisons Code. The
conditions have deteriorated since the publication of that
report, as the earnings are lower to-day than what they
were in 1921.

“ The wage census carried out by the Bombay Govern¬
ment in 1935 reveals the fact that in cotton textiles, which
is one of the premier and most organised industries, the
monthly earnings of 18 per cent, of the workers in Gokak
were between 3J. and gs., of 32 per cent, of the workers
in Sholapur between 7 s. 6 d. and 15L, and of 20 per
cent, of the workers below 22s. 6 d., and of 32 per cent,
of the workers between 22 s. 6 d. and 301. in the city of
Bombay.

“ The level of wages in unorganised industries, whose
number is very large in India, can better be imagined than
described. Taking advantage of the class of expropriated
peasants which is incessandy increasing by leaps and bounds.

352 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

the employers have driven the wage far below the subsistence
level and do not allow it to rise to a point which the con¬
ditions of industry can permit. ... •

“ The workers of India are unprotected against risks of
sickness, unemployment, old age and death. . . . The
Government of India have consistently refused to devise
any scheme of benefits for the unemployed. . . . Suicides
by workers to protect themselves against unemployment are
in evidence and deaths due to hunger are recorded in the
municipal reports for the city of Bombay.

“ In the census report for 1931 it is stated that the housing
conditions in the city of Bombay, the most industrialised
centre in India, are a disgrace to any civilised community.

• Ninety-five per cent, of the working-class families in the city
of Bombay live in one-room tenements of the average dimen¬
sions of 1 10 square feet. There are thousands of workers in
Bombay in whose case the footpaths serve the purpose of
the shelter of a home.

“ The following table showing infantile mortality in Bom¬
bay per thousand births for 1933-34 discloses a staggering
contrast of infantile mortality in the ranks of the working
class and the rest :

1 room and under .... 524-0

2 rooms . 394-5

3 rooms . 255-4

4 rooms and over .... 246-5

Conditions have not changed for the better since then. The
Government have done nothing to enable the workers to
live in healthy houses without having to pay rents which
their purses cannot afford and then to check the death
rate — shall I use a stronger, but more appropriate term,
massacre — of working-class infants.”

(Speech of S. V. Parulekar, Indian Workers’ Delegate

at the International Labour Conference, Geneva,

July, 1938.)

The fullest general survey of wage levels and the movement
of wages in Indian industry, outside the Whitley Commission’s
Report in 1931, will be found in D. H. Buchanan’s “The
Development of Capitalist Enterprise in India ” (1934)1

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 353

chapter XV, pp. 317-60. The author reaches the conclusion
that “ between i860 and 1890 there appears to have been very
little change in the real incomes of Indian factory hands
between 1890 and 1914 “ prices rose markedly, and wages
followed, though with a lag ” ; “ with the war-time boom,
wages lagged for several years, then advanced sharply, but
unevenly, in some cases fully abreast of the high prices ”.
Thus up to the end of the war of 1914-18 there was no advance
in the level of real wages, but, if anything, deterioration.
Only in the subsequent period a change set in. “ Since the war
there have been numerous wage disputes, and while there have
been some slight recessions, there have been some remarkable
advances.” “ In a few industries, notably in Bombay cotton
manufacturing, wages rose considerably more than the cost of
living; and even during recent years, when prices have de¬
clined so markedly, wages have been maintained. Labour
has become sufficiently awakened to make wage reductions
extremely difficult.” The depression brought heavy losses
through cuts in wages, rationalisation, unemployment and
short time; nevertheless, some of the gains in real wages
were held, and in the recent pre-war period new advances
were won, as in the successful Cawnpore textile strike in 1938.
It will thus be seen that the only advances in real wages
of the Indian industrial workers have coincided with the
development and activity of trade unionism, and have closely
corresponded to the location and strength of trade unionism.
But the masses of the most backward workers have been little
affected.

There are no general wage statistics for India, nor any
uniform rates, even for the same type of work in the same
industrial centre. Light on the average rates of semi-skilled
industrial workers has been afforded by the returns of cases
under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, which were analysed
in the Whitley Commission’s Report for the five years 1925-29.
These returns would exclude the unskilled workers, or lower-
paid workers who would be too helpless, and even ignorant of
the existence of the Act, to claim compensation. Even so,
these favourable figures, officially put forward as representing
“ a general impression of wage-levels for the semi-skilled
operatives in organised industry ” (excluding children, exclud¬
ing unskilled workers, excluding the badly paid workers in

354 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

unorganised industry), reveal a sufficiently striking picture.
To make their significance clearer for non-Indian readers, we
have not only translated the rupee figures into English money,
on the basis of is. 6d. for the rupee, but have also translated
the monthly totals into weekly wage figures on the basis of
four and one-third weeks to the month. The result of such a
calculation shows the following picture :

AVERAGE EARNINGS OF ADULT SEMI-SKILLED WORKERS
IN ORGANISED INDUSTRY

Percentage earning the weekly equivalent of

Under
4s. 6d.

4s. 6d.-
6s.

7s- 9d ■

7s- 9d-~
9 *■ 6d.

9s. 6d-
irs. 3d.

ns. 3d.
and
over.

United Provinces .

Madras

•9

Central Provinces .

Bihar and Orissa .

Bengal .

Bombay

■9

(Table from Report of the Whitley Commission on Labour in India, 1
p. 204, calculated into English equivalents on the basis given above.) 1

Thus over one-quarter of the adult semi-skilled workers in the ]
United Provinces earn under 4 s. 6 d. a week, and over one-half I
under 6s. a week ; over one-half in the Central Provinces, and
nearly one-half in Madras and in Bihar and Orissa, under 6j.
a week ; in Bengal one-half under 7 s. grf. a week ; and even !
in Bombay, with its higher cost of living, over one-half earn J
less than 95. 6 d. a week.

These are favourable figures for relatively better-placed
workers, not general figures for all workers. In more recent
years a series of enquiries into working-class family budgets

have been conducted under the Provincial Labour Depart¬
ments, and the results published, for Bombay in 1935 (the
enquiry covering 1932-33), for Ahmedabad in 1937, and for
Madras in 1938; an earlier similar enquiry had been pub¬
lished for Sholapur in 1928, covering the year 1925.

The results showed an average family income (not individu; s
income) : in Bombay amounting to Rs. 50 a month, or 17 s. 4 d.
a week; in Ahmedabad, Rs. 46 a month, or 15J. nd. a week;

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 355

in Sholapur, Rs. 40 a month, or 13*. 10 d. a week; and in
Madras, Rs. 37 a month for workers in organised industries,
or 12 s. rod. a week, and for workers in unorganised industries
and occupations, Rs. 20 to 27 a month, or 7 s. to gs. 3 d. a week.
The average family (according to the Bombay, Sholapur and
Ahmedabad enquiries) numbered four persons, of whom one
and a half to two persons were wage-earners. The above
figures should thus be diminished by one-third to one-half for
average wages. This would give gs. 10 d. a week for the
average wage in Bombay; gs. id. in Ahmedabad; 7 s. 1 id. in
Sholapur ; and in Madras 7 s. \d. for the workers in organised
industries, and 4 s. to 5J. 3 d. for the workers in unorganised
industries.

It is necessary to recognise that the nominal wage figures are
still further reduced by the numerous deductions, com¬
missions, fines, customary bribes to foremen and the heavy
burden of indebtedness at exorbitant rates of interest (an
indebtedness made almost compulsory by the institution of
paying wages monthly in the majority of cases, in the more
favourable cases fortnightly, and with the actual payment
often deferred ten days or a fortnight after the completion of
the month, thus exacting six weeks’ credit from the worker) .
The Whitley Commission estimated that “ in most industrial
centres the proportion of families or individuals who are in
debt is not less than two-thirds of the whole ”, and that “ in
the great majority of cases the amount of debt exceeds three
months’ wages and is often far in excess of this amount ”.
Subsequent enquiries have shown that the estimate of two-
thirds was an under-statement. In the Bombay Enquiry
quoted above, 75 per cent, of the families were found to be in
debt. The Madras Report found that 90 per cent, of the
families in organised industries were in debt, and that the
amount of debt averaged six months’ wages.

The miners are especially low paid, and their wages have
been heavily cut in recent years. Four-fifths of the total force
employed in the Indian coal-fields are in the Raniganj and
Jharria coalfields. In the Raniganj coal-field the wages of
miners before 1914 were 6 annas, or 6 d. a day; after the
war they rose, until by 1929 they were 13 annas, or ij. 2 d. a
day ; by 1936 they were ~]\ annas, or 8d. a day. Well might the
President of the National Association of Colliery Managers

35« THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

speak in February, 1937, of the “ ridiculously low wages of the
workers ”. The average annual output of coal of a miner in
India was 131 tons above and below ground, as compared
with 207 tons in Japan, 298 tons in the United Kingdom, and
671 tons in the United States.

The conditions of the plantation workers reach the lowest
levels. “ In the Assam Valley tea-gardens (Assam and Bengal
produce by far the greater bulk of the tea in India) the average
monthly earnings of men workers settled in the gardens are
about Rs. 7-13-0 a month, of women and children about Rs.
5-14-0 and Rs. 4-4-0 respectively ’’(Shiva Rao, “The Industrial
Worker in India ”, 1939, p. 128). This is equivalent to 2 s. 8 d. a
week for men, 2 s. a week for women and is. 5 \d. for children.
The addition of free “ housing ”, medical treatment and other
concessions only emphasises the slave conditions. In the
Surma Valley the rates are still lower. In the South India
plantations the rates have been lowered to 4 to 5 annas (4 \d.
to 5 \d.) a day for men and less than 3 annas (3 \d.) for women.

The fantastic profits extracted on the basis of this rate of
exploitation are notorious, and reached the most colossal
heights in the boom after the last war. The delegation of the
Dundee Jute Trade Unions to India reported in 1925 with
regard to the jute industry :

“ When Reserve Funds and Profits are added together the
total gain to the shareholders in the ten years (191 5-1924)
reached the enormous total of £300 million sterling, or
90 per cent, per annum of the capital. There are from
300,000 to 327,000 workers employed at an average wage
to-day of £12 ioj. per annum. A profit of £300 million
taken from 300,000 workers in ten years means £1,000 per
head. That means £ 1 00 a year from each worker. And as
the average wage is about £12 10 s. per head, it means that
the average annual profit is eight times the wages bill.”

(T. Johnston and J. F. Sime, “ Exploitation in India ”,
PP- 5-6-) /

With regard to the cotton industry the Tariff Board Enquiry
reported in 1927 :

“ An examination of the balance sheets of the Bombay
mills shows that for 1 920, 35 companies comprising 42 m

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 357

declared dividends of 40 per cent, and over, of which 10
companies comprising 14 mills paid 100 per cent, and over
and two mills paid over 200 per cent. In 1921 the number
was 41 companies comprising 47 mills, out of which 9
companies comprising 11 mills paid dividends of 100 per
cent, and over.”

(Report of the Indian Tariff Board, Cotton Textile
Enquiry, 1927, Vol. I, p. 83.)

Cases were reported of dividends as high as 365 per cent.
The souvenir booklet issued on the occasion of the Golden
Jubilee of the Empress Mills at Nagpur in 1927 proudly
boasted :

“ The dividends of the first twenty years show an average
of close upon 16 per cent., and in the period preceding the
boom which followed the world war the return to the share¬
holders averaged 23 per cent. During the boom period the
profits were sufficient to justify an average dividend of over
90 per cent. It was Mr. Tata’s ambition that the Empress
Mills should pay a dividend of 100 per cent. Though this
sum was not attained till after his death, the fact that it was
at length attained is sufficient to show how successfully the
firm has carried on the traditions of its founder. In 1919
the dividends on each ordinary share of Rs. 500 were Rs. 350 ;
but in 1922 they rose again to Rs. 525 though the mills were
working under great difficulties. ... In 1923 despite
depression in the textile trade and the trouble of strikes the
dividends paid amounted to Rs. 280 on each ordinary share.

“ The original holders who had received bonus shares
upon which the same dividends were paid could in 1920
reckon their actual dividend to be 488 per cent. . . .

“ In general it is interesting to note that the total profits of
the Empress Mill up to the 30th June, 1926, aggregate over
Rs. 92,214,527, which is nearly 61-47 times the original
ordinary share capital ; and up to the same date the
company has paid Rs. 59,431,267 in dividends on ordinary
shares which works out to 8o-86 per cent, per annum on the
originally subscribed capital. . . . The original shareholder
has consequently gained, by being the first fortunate allottee
of a share of the paid up value of Rs. 500 in the Company,
2-05 shares given him gratis worth to him Rs. 7,838 on the

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

358

/ basis of the present market value . . . and it has brought

him Rs. 19,810 in the shape of dividends.”

(“ The Empress Mills, Nagpur, Golden Jubilee, 1 877—
1927 ”, pp. 90-93.)

This eldorado of profit-making could not continue in¬
definitely, although exceptionally high rates were maintained
right up to the world economic crisis. Thus as late as 1928,
1929 and 1930 the Empress Mill quoted above was declaring
dividends of 28, 26 and 24 per cent. In jute the leading
Gourepore Mill (which had paid 250 per cent, in 1918) was
paying 100 per cent, in 1927, 60 per cent, in 1928 and 50 per
cent, in 1929. In coal four leading companies in 1929 were
paying 70, 55, 36 and 30 per cent. In tea 98 companies
incorporated in India declared dividends averaging 23 per
cent, in 1928, and 74 paid an average of 20 per cent, in 1929.

The crisis and economic depression hit Indian industry
hard. Ruthless measures of rationalisation and wage-cutting
were pushed through to maintain profits, especially in the
textile industry. In cotton the consumption was raised from
4-7 million cwt. in 1922-23 to 10-9 million in 1934-35, or
an increase of 60 per cent., while the numbers employed rose
only from 356,000 to 414,000, or an increase of 16 per cent.
In jute the mill consumption rose from 4-7 million bales in
1922-23 to 6 million in 1935-36, or an increase of 28 per cent.,
while the numbers employed actually fell from 321,000 to
278,000, or a decrease of 13 per cent. On the railways staff
was cut from 817,000 in 1929-30 to 710,000 in 1936-37. In
coal the output was raised from 19-3 million tons in 1921 to
23 million in 1935, while the numbers employed were reduced
from 205,000 to 1 79,000.

The level of profits to-day, while no longer equalling the
orgies of the post-war boom, still abundantly reveals the
exceptional exploitation. Thus in jute, the Reliance Jute
Mills Company paid dividends of 50 per cent, in 1935, 42 \ per
cent, in 1936 and 30 per cent, in 1937. In cotton, the Muir
Mills Company paid dividends of 35 per cent, in 1935, 27^ per
cent, in 1936, and 22$ per cent, in 1937. In tea, the New
Dooars Tea Company paid dividends of 50 per cent, both in
1935 and 1936; the Nagaisuke Tea Company paid 60 per
cent, in 1935 and 50 per cent, in 1936; and the East Hope

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 359

Estates Company paid 23 per cent, in 1935, 33 per cent, in
1936 and 40 per cent, in 1937.

Even a portion of these colossal profits during the twenty
years since the war of 1914-18, aggregating many hundreds of
millions of pounds, could have done much to wipe out the most
extreme scandals of the housing of the workers and begin
the most elementary measures of social protection and hygiene.
The responsibility to adopt the measures which could make
this possible has never been recognised by the existing regime
in India. In no leading country in the world are the rich let
off so lightly in taxation as in India, while the main burden of
taxation is placed squarely on the shoulders of the poorest.
The peasants have to pay the land revenue, while the land¬
lords’ incomes are exempted from income tax. The workers
have to pay through crushing indirect taxation, while the
weight of income tax on the higher incomes is kept low. The
total annual burden of indirect taxation, according to Sir
James Grigg, the Finance Member of the Government of
India, speaking in April, 1938, amounts to eight times the
total of direct taxation. The total proceeds from income tax i
amounted in 1936-37 to £1 1 J million, or one-fourteenth of the
total revenue, and represented, according to the same authority,
less than 1 per cent, of the national income, as against the
corresponding figure for income tax, surtax and death duties
in Britain, representing over 10 per cent, of the national income.

Labour and social legislation in India is no less backward;
and the reality is far below the appearance on paper. Factory
legislation of a kind was initiated in 1881, largely under the
pressure of Lancashire employers alarmed at the growth of
the Indian mill industry. For decades it was to a considerable
extent a dead letter, even in the very limited respects in which
it was directed, owing to lack of provision for enforcement.

“ At the beginning of 1905 the system of factory inspec¬
tion in India had partly broken down. There was a Factories
Act, but in certain respects it had become almost a dead
letter. ... In the city of Bombay there were 79 cotton
mills, employing a daily average of 114,000 people; yet
every officer associated with the inspection of the Bombay
factories had many other things to do. The ‘ Chief In¬
spector of Factories ’ was the Assistant Collector, usually a
young civil servant. In 1905 the post was held by six

360 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

different men, all inexperienced, and generally indisposed
to regard factory inspection as a serious part of their mani¬
fold duties. The single whole-time factory inspector was
chiefly employed in checking produce under the Cotton
Excise Act, for the Government carefully looked after their
dues. ... It was only natural that under such a system
the provisions of the Factories Act were systematically
evaded. In Calcutta the failure of factory inspection, and
the evils which followed in its train, were even more
apparent. One Calcutta mill manager frankly admitted
to the second Factory Labour Commission that he had taken
no notice of the Factories Act. Another manager else¬
where, whose mill employed nearly 400 children, actually
affirmed that he had never heard of a Factories Act im¬
posing restrictions in child labour.”

(Lovat Fraser, “ India under Curzon and After ”,
PP- 33°-3 !•)

Even as late as 1924 the Collector of Bombay, under whose
authority the Annual Factories Report for that year was
issued (which recorded, incidentally, “ irregularities in
practically every factory ”), stated as the official view in the
introductory note :

“ The tightening up of the Factories Act and rules tends
to work too rigidly in my opinion and to hamper industry.
... It is har’d both on employers and employees not to be
able in the case of special jobs to have work occasionally on
rest days and overtime hours. The men in such cases are
willing to work, take no harm from it, and get overtime
wages. Hence it has been the policy of the Department to
recommend reasonable exemptions.”

(Annual Factory Report of the Presidency of Bombay,
1924: Preface by the Collector of Bombay.)

The present Factories Act of 1934 limits hours in permanent
factories to the ten-hour day and fifty-four-hour week, and in
seasonal factories (not working more than half the year) to
the eleven-hour day (ten hours for women) and sixty-hour
week; with a maximum spreadover of thirteen hours; and
with arrangements for overtime. Women’s labour at night is
prohibited ; children under twelve years are not allowed to

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 361

be employed, and between twelve and fifteen years are limited
to five hours in the day-time, with a spreadover of seven and a
half hours. This Act affects only i J million workers.

The Mines Act of 1935 limits hours to ten above ground and
nine below ground, with a spreadover of twelve hours; the
employment of children under fifteen years is prohibited. This
Act affects one quarter of a million workers.

On the railways hours are limited to sixty per week.

The Indian Ports Act of 1931 prohibits the employment of
children under twelve and provides certain limited safety
regulations for dockers.

The Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1934 affects about
6 million workers ; but very limited advantage has in practice
been taken of its provisions, owing to fear of victimisation.

The Payment of Wages Act of 1936 makes the maximum
wage period one month (weekly or fortnightly wages were
refused), with payment within one week after the month, and
limits the imposition of fines and arbitrary deductions.

It will be seen from the above how extremely limited is
labour legislation in India.

“ Taking all labour legislation into account, affecting
factories, mines, plantations, docks, railways, harbours, etc.,
it is doubtful whether more than seven or eight millions at
the outside come within its protective influence. The rest
who constitute by far the greater majority of the industrial
workers are engaged in small or what is known as un¬
regulated industries.”

(Shiva Rao, “ The Industrial Worker in India ”, 1939,
p. 210.)

The main factories legislation proper extended in 1936 to
only 1,650,000 workers, or a minute fraction of the Indian
working class. Even here the weakness of machinery for
enforcement impairs its effectiveness. With 10,226 factories
registered under the Factories Act in 1936, there were only
just over 9,300 inspections in that year. 1,200 factories were
not inspected at all during the year, and 3,000 only once. The
consequences for the effectiveness of the regulations can be
imagined. Even in the 940 convictions obtained under the
Act the fines imposed were extremely light, and a virtual incite¬
ment to violation.

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

362

Industry in the Indian States is completely outside the
Factories Act.

The main body of industry in India is unregulated. Here
child labour, even of the tenderest years, is rampant ; hours
are unlimited ; the most elementary provisions for health are
lacking. The Madras Report of 1938, previously quoted,
found that child labour was on the increase in the unorganised
industries. In the tanneries, the carpet factories and the
cigarette-making factories the conditions defy description.
In the cigarette-making factories the children normally begin
work at five or six years of age; the hours are ten to twelve
hours a day without a weekly rest day ; the wages earned by
these children for their ten- to twelve-hour day are two annas,
or 2 d. a day.

Social legislation in the modern sense is completely absent.
There is no health insurance, no medical provision or sickness
benefit, no provision for old age, no provision for unemploy¬
ment and no general system of education. Even the most
elementary requirements for public health, street-cleaning,
water-supply, lighting, removal of refuse are almost entirely
neglected in the working-class areas, while elaborate provision
is made in the rich residential quarters inhabited by the
Europeans and upper-class Indians, and the proceeds of
taxation are spent on these quarters. The rotting slums, which
bring disease and early death of their inhabitants, and regular
returns of 30 to 40 per cent, a year to their owners, are left to
rot by the public authorities. There is no street-cleaning in
the slums owned by private individuals and trusts ; the
narrow lanes between the lines are left covered with rotting
refuse and garbage. Jawaharlal Nehru has related his
experience when he was Mayor of Allahabad :

“ Most Indian cities can be divided into two parts : the
densely crowded city proper, and the widespread area with
bungalows and cottages, each with a fairly extensive com¬
pound or garden, usually referred to by the English as the
‘ Civil Lines ’. It is in these Civil Lines that the English
officials and business men, as well as many upper middle
class Indians, professional men, officials, etc., live. The
income of the municipality from the city proper is greater
« than that from the Civil Lines, but the expenditure on the
latter far exceeds the city expenditure. For the far wider

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 363

area covered by the Civil Lines requires more roads, and
they have to be repaired, cleaned-up, watered and lighted ;
and the drainage, the water-supply and the sanitation
system have to be more widespread. The city part is always
grossly neglected, and of course the poorer parts of the city
are almost ignored ; it has few good roads, and most of the
narrow lanes are ill-lit and have no proper drainage or
sanitation system.”

(Jawaharlal Nehru, “ Autobiography ”, p. 143.)

Nehru attempted to introduce a tax on land values to make
possible improvements. He was at once held up by the
District Magistrate, who pointed out that any such proposal
would be in contravention of various enactments or conditions
of land tenure ; such a tax would have fallen mainly on the
owners of the bungalows in the Civil Lines.

Thus under the enlightened protection of the “ civilised ”
British Raj the filth-ridden conditions, limitless exploitation
and servitude of the Indian workers are zealously maintained.
From their carefully protected and hygienically safeguarded
palaces the European lords rule over their kingdom of squalor
and misery.

“ Nothing can equal, for squalor and filth and stench, the
bustees (workers’ quarters) in Howrah and the suburbs north
of Calcutta. . . . The great majority of the workers in the
jute mills are compelled to live in private bustees. Under the
Bengal Municipalities Act the duty of improving the slum
areas is cast on the owners who make very handsome
incomes from the poor occupants. But vested interests see
to it that these powers under the Act are never brought into
operation. It would be impossible to describe the condition
of these bustees — ‘ filthy disease-ridden hovels ’, as they have
been called, with no windows, chimneys or fireplaces, and
the doorways so low that one has to bend almost on one’s
knees to enter. There is neither light nor water supply, and
of course no sanitary arrangements. Access to groups of
bustees is usually along a narrow tunnel of filth, breeding
almost throughout the year, but particularly during the
rains, myriads of mosquitoes and flies. . . .

“ Conditions in certain parts of Howrah, which is the
second biggest municipality in Bengal, are even worse than

364 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

in the northern suburbs of Calcutta. Land being extremely
valuable has been built on to the last available foot. The
lanes on either sides of which these bustees have been built
are not more than 3 feet wide, but right through them, as
in the other mill areas, run the open drains.”

(Shiva Rao, “ The Industrial Worker in India ”,
pp. 1 13-14.)

These are the living conditions of the jute-workers from whom
dividends running into hundreds per cent, have been wrung by
the European-run companies, extending to a return many
times over of the original capital.

This is the background of the Indian Labour Movement.
It is to the millions living in these conditions that Socialism
and Trade Unionism have brought for the first time hope and
confidence, and awakening to the power of combination, and
the first vision of a goal which can end their misery.

3. Formation of the Labour Movement
The beginnings of the labour movement in India go back
half a century; but its continuous history as an organised
movement dates only from the end of the first world war.

Once the conditions of factory industry were established by
the eighteen-seventies, it was inevitable that strikes should take
place, even though at first in an elementary and unorganised
form. There is record of a strike in 1877 at the Empress
Mills at Nagpur over wage rates. Between 1882 and 1890
twenty-five strikes were recorded in the Bombay and Madras
Presidencies.

The conventional history of the labour movement in India
commonly derives its starting-point from the meeting of
Bombay mill-workers in 1884, convened by a local editor,
N. M. Lokhande, who drew up a memorial of demands for
limitation of hours, a weekly rest day, a noontime recess and
compensation for injuries, to present to the Factories Com¬
mission as the demands of the Bombay workers. Lokhande
described himself as “ President of the Bombay Millhands’
Association ” — which is consequently often referred to as the
first labour organisation in India — and later started a journal
Dinabandhu, or Friend of the Poor.

This picture of the activity of Lokhande, which had its
important role in Indian labour history, as the starting-point

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 365

of the Indian labour movement is a misleading one ; and it is
of a misleading character which we shall have occasion to
note repeatedly in the early history of the Indian labour move¬
ment, owing to the extreme difficulty of articulate expression
of the real working-class struggle. The “ Bombay Millhands’
Association ” was in no sense a labour organisation ; it had no
membership, no funds and no rules. “ The Bombay millhands
have no organised trade union. It should be explained that
although Mr. N. M. Lokhande, who served on the last Factory
Commission, describes himself as President of the Bombay
Millhands’ Association, that Association has no existence as
an organised body, having no roll of membership, no funds and
no rules. I understand that Mr. Lokhande simply acts as
Volunteer Adviser to any millhand who may come to him ”
(Report on the Working of the Factory Act in Bombay for
1892, p. 15). Lokhande was a philanthropic promoter of
labour legislation and of workers’ welfare, not a pioneer of
labour organisation or of labour struggle.

For the early history of the Indian labour movement it
would be necessary to piece together the records of the strike
movement from the eighties onwards in the documents of the
period. Although there was not yet any organisation, it
would be a mistake to under-estimate the growth of solidarity
in action and elementary class-consciousness of the Indian in¬
dustrial workers during the decades preceding the war of 1914.
The Directors’ Report of the Budge Budge jute mill in 1895
stated that they “ regret that a strike among the workpeople,
by which the mills were closed for nearly six weeks, occurred
during the half year At Ahmedabad in 1895 a strike of
8,000 weavers against the Ahmedabad Millowners’ Association
is recorded (Bombay Factory Report, 1895).

“ Despite almost universal testimony before Commissions
between 1880 and 1908 to the effect that there were no
actual unions, many stated that the labourers in an in¬
dividual mill were often able to act in unison and that, as a
group, they were very independent. The inspector of
boilers spoke in 1892 of' an unnamed and unwritten bond of
union among the workers peculiar to the people ’ ; and the
Collector of Bombay wrote that although this was ‘ little
more than in the air ’ it was ‘ powerful ’. ‘I believe ’, he
wrote to the Government ‘ it has had much to do with the

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

prolonged maintenance of what seems to be a monopoly or
almost a monopoly wage.’ Sir Sassoon David said in 1908
that if labour ‘ had no proper organisation, they had an
understanding among themselves ’. Mr. Barucha, lately
Director of Industries in Bombay Presidency, stated that
‘ the hands were all-powerful against the owners, and could
combine, though they had not got a trade union If
there is some degree of exaggeration in these statements, the
word of the British deputy commissioner at Wardha cer¬
tainly overshot the mark when he said that ‘ the workers
were masters of the situation; and the millowners were
really more in need of protection than the workers V’

(D. H. Buchanan, “ The Development of Capitalist
Enterprise in India ”, p. 425.)

These words already breathe the masters’ fear of the incipient
class-consciousness of the Indian workers.

During 1905-9 there was a notable advance, parallel to the
militant national wave. A strike in the Bombay mills against
an extension of hours, serious strikes on the railways, especially
the Eastern Bengal State Railway, in the railway shops, and
in the Government Press at Calcutta characterised this period.
The highest point was reached with the six-day political mass
strike in Bombay against the sentence of six years’ imprisonment
on Tilak in 1908.

Any stable organisation was not yet possible. But this was a
reflection of the utter poverty and illiteracy of the workers
and lack of any facilities, rather than of backwardness or lack
of militancy. Possibilities of organisation were still in the

hands of other elements. Thus in 1910 a “ Kamgar Hitvar-
thak Sabha ”, or Workers’ Welfare Association, was formed by
philanthropists in Bombay; its objects were to present peti¬
tions to the Government and to settle disputes between em¬
ployers and workers. Trade Unionism in the normal sense
extended before 1914 only to the upper ranks (European and
Anglo-Indian) of railwaymen and government employees
thus the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants was
formed in 1897 and registered under the Companies Act;
its functions were primarily concerned with friendly benefits, and
although it has continued in existence into the modern period
(changing its name in 1928 to the National Union of Railway
men), it has played no part in the Indian labour movement

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 367

It was the conditions of the close of the first world war,
of the sequel of the Russian Revolution and the world re¬
volutionary wave, that brought the Indian working class at
a bound into full activity and opened the modern labour
movement in India. Economic and political conditions alike
contributed to the new awakening. Prices had doubled
during the war ; there had been no corresponding increase in
wages ; fantastic profits were being amassed by the employers.
In the political field new demands were in the air ; Gongress-
Muslim League unity had been achieved on the basis of a
programme of immediate self-government ; the first waves of
revolutionary influence were reaching India.

The strike movement which began in 1918 and swept the
country in 1919 and 1920 was overwhelming in its intensity.
The end of 1918 saw the first great strike affecting an entire
industry in a leading centre in the Bombay cotton mills ; by
January, 1919, 125,000 workers, covering practically all the
mills, were out. The response to the hartal against the
Rowlatt Acts in the spring of 1919 showed the political role
of the workers in the forefront of the common national
struggle. During 1919 strikes spread over the country. By
the end of 1919 and the first half of 1920 the wave reached its
height.

“ Some conception of the intensity and extent of the
strikes of this period may be had from the following data :
November 4 to December 2, 1919, woollen mills, Gawnpore,
17,000 men out; December 7, 1919, to January 9, 1920,
railway workers, Jamalpur, 16,000 men out; January 9-18,
1920, jute mills, Calcutta, 35,000 men out; January 2 to
February 3, general strike, Bombay, 200,000 men out;
January 20-31, millworkers, Rangoon, 20,000 men out;
January 31, British India Navigation Company, Bombay,
10,000 men out; January 26 to February 16, millworkers,
Sholapur, 16,000 men out; February 2-16, Indian Marine
Dock workers, 20,000 men out; February 24 to March 29, .
Tata iron and steel workers, 40,000 men out; March 9,
mill workers, Bombay, 60,000 men out; March 20-26,
millworkers, Madras, 17,000 men out; May, 1920, mill-
workers, Ahmedabad, 25,000 men out.”

(R. K. Das, “ The Labour Movement in India ”, 1923,
PP- 36-37-)

368 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

In the first six months of 1920 there were 200 strikes, involving
1 J million workers.

These were the conditions in which Indian trade unionism
was born. Most of the Indian trade unions in the main
industries and centres derive from this period, although,
from the inevitable conditions, organisation has seldom been
continuous. This great period of militancy was the birth of
the modern Indian labour movement.

Trade unions were formed by the score during this period.
Many were essentially strike committees, springing up in the
conditions of an immediate struggle, but without staying power.
While the workers were ready for struggle the facilities for
office organisation were inevitably in other hands. Hence
arose the contradiction of the early Indian labour movement.
There was not yet any political movement on the basis of
socialism, of the conceptions of the working class and the class
struggle. In consequence, the so-called “ outsiders ” or
helpers from other class elements who came forward, for vary¬
ing reasons, to give their assistance in the work of organisation,
and whose assistance was in fact indispensable in this initial
period, came without understanding of the aims and needs of
the labour movement, and brought with them the conceptions
of middle-class politics. Whether their aims were phil¬
anthropic, as in some cases, careerist, as in others, or actuated
by devotion to the national political struggle, as in others, they
brought with them an alien outlook, and were incapable of
guiding the young working-class movement on the basis of the
class struggle which the workers were in fact waging. This
misfortune long dogged the Indian labour movement, seriously
hampering the splendid militancy and heroism of the workers ; ,
and its influences still remain.

The starting-point of Indian trade unionism is commonly .
derived from the Madras Labour Union, formed by B. P.
Wadia, an associate of the theosophist Mrs. Besant, in 1918. J
This picture is to a certain extent misleading in relation to the
living history of the Indian working class. First attempts at
trade-union organisation were springing up all over India
during this period ; there is trace of the Warpers in the i
Ahmedabad cotton mills forming a union in 1917. But the
basis of organisation was still very weak, and far behind the
level of militancy and activity of the working class. The

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 369

Madras Labour Union was certainly the first systematic
attempt at trade-union organisation, with regular membership
and dues, of the mass of Indian workers in an industrial centre.
For this initiative all credit must be paid to its founders. But
the appearance of this initiative in a relatively weak industrial
centre (during the whole period 1921-33 the number of strike
days in Madras was 2-8 million against 20 million in Bengal
and 60 million in Bombay) reveals its accidental personal
character; and it would not be correct to exaggerate its
influence in the general development of the Indian labour
movement. The limitations of the outlook of its founder,
B. P. Wadia, were revealed when the Madras workers, having
formed their union under his presidency in April, 1918, and
having presented their demands to the employers, received no
satisfaction and demanded a strike ; Wadia opposed any strike
on grounds of devotion to the cause of British imperialism
(a role thus parallel to that of Mrs. Besant in the national
movement) in a speech on July 3, 1918:

“ If by going on strike you were affecting the pockets of
Messrs. Binny and Co., I would not mind, for they are
making plenty of money; but by such a step you will
injure the cause of the Allies. Our soldiers, who have to be
clothed, will be put to inconvenience, and we have no right to
trouble those who are fighting our King’s battles, because a few
Europeans connected with the mills and this Government are
acting in a bad manner. Therefore we must have no strikes.”

He was successful in preventing any strike ; but Messrs. Binny
and Co., undeterred by Wadia’s “ patriotic ” arguments,
then declared a lock-out, and the workers, caught unprepared,
and having been persuaded to forego the strike weapon, were
compelled at the moment to give way to their demands. The
main contest in Madras came in 1921 with a lock-out followed
by a strike ; the company used the method of the injunction ;
the High Court imposed a fine of £7,000 on the union, and, as
the price of the company consenting not to prosecute the judge¬
ment, Wadia was compelled to sever his connection with the
labour movement. This was a very powerful demonstration of
the methods used to crush the early labour movement in India.

In other centres many types of helpers, sometimes closely
connected with the employers, came forward to take charge of

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

370

labour organisation. In Ahmedabad Gandhi, in close associa¬
tion with the mill-owners, organised a separatist form of labour
organisation on a basis of class peace; and to this day the
Ahmedabad Labour Association remains isolated from the
Indian labour movement.

It was in this period that the Indian Trade Union Congress
was founded in 1920. The inaugural session was held in
Bombay in October, 1920, with the national leader, Lajpat
Rai, as President, and Joseph Baptista as Vice-President. In its
early years this body was mainly a “ top ” organisation, and
many of its leaders had very limited connection with the work¬
ing-class movement. The main impetus to its founding was to
secure a nominating body for representation at the Inter¬
national Labour Conference at Geneva. N. M. Joshi, one
of its earliest leaders, in his pamphlet on “ The Trade Union
Movement in India ” (p. 10) derives the foundation of the
Trade Union Congress from the effects of the Washington
Labour Conference : “ This brought out clearly the necessity
of not only starting labour organisations, but also of bringing
about some sort of co-ordination amongst them in order that
they should be able to make their recommendations with one
voice.” At the fourth session in 1924 the President was the
leader of the Swaraj Party, C. R. Das. The official addresses
mainly inculcated the principles of class peace, moral and
social improvement of the workers and uplift, and voiced
demands for labour legislation and welfare provisions. As
characteristic of the old outlook of the middle-class leadership
of the early years of the Trade Union Congress, we may take
the following passage from the Chairman’s Address to the
Sixth Trade Union Congress in 1926 :

“ I heartily commend to you the good work of the Purity
Mission started by the Central Labour Board, Bombay. . . .
The missionwas started with theobject ofhelping the labourer
to give up his habits of vice and encourage him to live an
honest, peaceful and contented life. . . . Social workers
visit the localities and explain the evils of drink, gambling
and other vices. This is the sort of education that a labourer
wants, and this is what will make him a better man both
socially and economically.”

(Address of the President, V. V. Giri, to the Sixth Trade
Union Congress at Madras, 1926.)

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 37 1

The attitude to strikes was expressed in the General Secretary’s
Report to the Eighth Trade Union Congress at Cawnpore in
1927:

“ During the period under report no strike was authorised
by the Executive Council ; but owing to very acute in¬
dustrial conditions obtaining in different trades and different
parts of India there occurred somes strikes and lock-outs in
which the officials of the Congress had to interest themselves.”

(Report of the General Secretary, N. M. Joshi, to the
Eighth Trade Union Congress at Cawnpore, 1927.)

Up to 1927 the Trade Union Congress had a very limited
practical connection with the working-class struggle. Never¬
theless it formed the ground in which the leaders of the newly
forming trade unions came together, and it was therefore only a
question of time for the breath of the working-class struggle to
reach it. This new period opened in 1927. By 1927 the
Trade Union Congress united fifty-seven affiliated unions,
with a recorded membership of 150,555.

4. Political Awakening

Despite the character of the early nominal leadership of the
Indian labour movement, the Government was under no
illusions as to the significance of the emergence of the working-
class movement in the last two decades. Their concern was
shown in the appointment of the Bengal Committee on Indus¬
trial Unrest in 1921, the Bombay Industrial Disputes Com¬
mittee of 1922, and the Madras Labour Department in 1919-
20, followed by the Bombay Labour Department. A Trade
Union Bill was prepared in 1921, although it was not finally
passed until 1926. From 1921 regular statistics of industrial
disputes were recorded. The record is significant for the
picture it affords of the advance of the movement (see Table,
page 372). Of this total, considerably over half, in the
measure of working days, was in cotton textiles, and con¬
siderably more than half in Bombay.

It will be seen that three main periods of struggle stand out.
The first was the sequel of the post-war wave, reaching to the ,
great successful Bombay cotton strike of 1925 against the
threatened wage-cut, which at the end of three months’
struggle had to be withdrawn. The second was the combined

372 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

political and industrial awakening of 1928-29. The third
was the new advance which opened after the formation of the
Congress Ministries in 1937 and which is still going forward.

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES

Tear.

Number of
strikes and
lock-outs.

Number of
workpeople
involved.

Number of
working
days lost.

1921 .

396

600,351

6,984,426

1922 .

278

433.434

3,972,727

1923 •

213

301,044

5,051,704

1924 .

133

3 1 2,462

8,73°,9i8

1925 •

134

270,423

12,578,129

1926 .

128

186,81 1

1,097,478

1927 .

129

131.655

2,019,970

1928 .

203

506,851

31,647,404

1929 .

141

532,016

12,165,691

1930 .

148

196,301

2,261,731

1931 .

166

203,008

2,408,123

1932 •

1 18

128,099

*,922,437

1933 •

146

164,938

2,168,961

1934 .

159

220,808

4,775,559

1935 •

145

I 14^17

973,457

1936 .

157

169,029

2,358,062

1937 •

379

647,801

8,982,000

The Government were sharply aware, as their many com¬
mittees and commissions of enquiry throughout this period
revealed, of the menace to the whole basis of imperialism once
the rising working-class movement, whose power of struggle
was demonstrated throughout these post-war years, should
reach political awakening and firm organisation under class¬
conscious leadership. Their problem was to find the means to
direct the movement into “safe ’’channels, or what one of
their reports termed the “ right type ” of trade unionism — a
more difficult task in a colonial country than in an imperialist
country. This purpose underlay the Trade Union Act of 1926,
with its special restriction of political activities. This under¬
standing equally governed the sharp look-out against any signs
of political working-class awakening.

Nevertheless, despite all obstacles, through whatever initial
confusions, the beginnings of political working-class awakening,
of socialist and communist ideas, were slowly reaching India
in the post-war years. From 1920 onwards the literature of

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 373

the still very weak Communist Party of India had begun to
make its way. From 1924 a journal, the Socialist, was appear¬
ing in Bombay under the editorship of S. A. Dange, who was
to become Assistant Secretary of the Trade Union Congress.
The Government lost no time to strike. In 1924 (under a
Labour Government in England) the Cawnpore Trial was
staged against four of the communist leaders, Dange, Shaukat
Usmani, Muzaffar Ahmad and Das Gupta. All four were
sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. This was the baptism
of the political working-class movement in India.

Repression could not check the advance of awakening. By
1926-27 socialist ideas were spreading widely. A new initial
form of political working-class and socialist organisation began
to appear in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Parties, which sprang
up and united militant elements in the trade-union movement
with left elements in the National Congress. The first
Workers’ and Peasants’ Party was formed in Bengal in Feb¬
ruary, 1926 ; others followed in Bombay, the United Provinces
and the Punjab. These were united in 1928 in the All-India
Workers’ and Peasants’ Party, which held its first Congress in 1
December, 1928. This political expression, still suffering from
many forms of initial confusion, but revealing the growing new
forces, accompanied the new wave of working-class awakening,
the first signs of which began to appear in 1927.

At the Delhi session of the Trade Union Congress in the
spring of 1927 (which was attended by the British Communist
M.P., Shapurji Saklatvala), and still more markedly at the
Cawnpore session later in the year, the emergence was
revealed of challenging militant voices within the leadership
of trade unionism. It became speedily clear that the new
working-class leadership had the support of the majority
of Indian trade unionists, although the slow procedure of
registration of actual vodng strength delayed the final official
recognition of the majority until 1929. The First of May in
1927 was for the first time celebrated in Bombay as Labour
Day — the symbol of the opening of a new era of the Indian
labour movement as a conscious part of the international
labour movement.

1928 saw the greatest tide of working-class advance and
activity of any year of the post-war period. The centre of this
advance was in Bombay. For the first time a working-class

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

374

leadership had emerged, close to the workers in the factories,
guided by the principles of the class struggle, arid operating
as a single force in the economic and political field. The
response of the workers was overwhelming. The political
strikes and demonstrations against the arrival of the Simon
Commission in February placed the working class for the
moment in the vanguard of the national struggle ; for both
the Congress leadership and the reformist trade-union leader¬
ship had frowned on the project and were startled by its
success. Many of the Bombay municipal workers were
victimised and discharged for their participation; a further
strike compelled their reinstatement.

Trade-union organisation shot up. According to the
Government’s figures trade-union membership in Bombay,
which in the three years 1923-26 had only advanced from
48,669 to 59,544, reached 75,602 by 1927, leapt forward to
95,321 by March, 1928, and to 200,325 by March, 1929.
Foremost in this advance was the famous Girni Kamgar (Red
Flag) Union of the Bombay mill-workers, which started during
the year with a membership of only 324, and, according to the
Government’s Labour Gazette returns, had reached 54,000 by
December, 1928, and 65,000 by the first quarter of 1929.
Meanwhile the olcler Bombay Textile Labour Union, founded
in 1926, which stagnated under the reformist leadership of
N. M. Joshi, Secretary of the Trade Union Congress, and which
had the official encouragement of the Government and the
employers, moved, according to the same official returns, from
8,436 in October, 1928, to 6,749 in December, 1928. The
choice of the workers was evident. The strength of the Girni
Kamgar Union lay in its system of mill committees, close to
the workers.

The strike movement during 1928 totalled 31 £ million
working days, or more than the previous five years together.
Although the Bombay textile workers were the centre, the
movement was spread over India. Of the 203 disputes, ill
were in Bombay, 60 in Bengal, 8 in Bihar and Orissa, 7 in
Madras and 2 in the Punjab ; no were in the cotton and wool
textile industry, 19 in jute, n in the engineering workshops,
9 on the railways and in the railway workshops, and 1 in
coal-mining. Towering over all the rest was the Bombay
textile strike, the greatest strike in Indian history, in which

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 375

the entire labour force of 1 50,000 workers stood united for six
months from April to October against every form of pressure
and Government violence. The strike was originally directed
against measures of rationalisation and a *]\ per cent, wage cut,
and was extended, as it developed, to a wide series of demands.
The reformist leadership originally opposed the strike,
N. M. Joshi describing their position as that of “ lookers-on ”,
but were drawn into the movement. After every attempt to
break the strike had failed, the Government appointed the
Fawcett Committee, which recommended the withdrawal of the
per cent, wage cut and conceded certain other demands of
the workers.

A critical point had thus been reached by the opening of
1929. The working-class movement was advancing in the
forefront of the economic and political scene. The old re¬
formist leadership was being thrust aside. The mission of
the British Trades Union Congress in 1927-28, in which
imperialism had placed great hopes (“ the interest which the
British Trades Union Congress has lately taken in Indian
labour conditions may be very beneficial, if it leads to the
better organisation of Indian labour unions and the expulsion
of the communist elements ”, London Times, June 14, 1928),
had failed in its objective of securing the affiliation of the
Indian Trade Union Congress to the reformist Trade Union
International in Europe. The alarm of the Government was
uncpncealed. The Viceroy, Lord Irwin, in his speech to the
Legislative Assembly in January, 1929, declared that “ the
disquieting spread of communist doctrines has been causing
anxiety ”, and announced that the Government would take
measures. “ The growth of communist propaganda and
influence,” records the Government annual report on “ India
in 1928-29 ”, “ especially among the industrial classes of
certain large towns, caused anxiety to the authorities.”
Liberalism in England echoed the alarm. “ Experience of the
past two years ”, stated the Manchester Guardian in August,
1929, “ has shown that the industrial workers in the biggest
centres are peculiarly malleable material in the hands of un¬
scrupulous communist organisers.” The Indian national
Press joined in the outcry. “ Socialism is in the air ”, pro¬
claimed the Bombay Chronicle in May, 1929; “ for months past
socialistic principles have been preached in India at various

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

376

conferences, especially those of peasants and workers.” The
Reformist leaders, feeling the ground slipping from under
their feet, demanded drastic action. “ The time has come ”,
declared Shiva Rao, Chairman of the Executive of the Trade
Union Congress, already in May, 1928, “ when the trade
union movement in India should weed out of its organisation
mischief-makers. A warning is all the more necessary because
there are certain individuals who go about preaching the
gospel of strike.”

In 1929 the Government acted and turned its full offensive
to counter the rise of the working-class movement. The
Public Safety Bill had been introduced in September, 1928,
with the object, according to the official report, “ to curb
communist activities in India ”, but had been rejected by the
Legislative Assembly; in the spring of 1929 it was issued as a
special Ordinance by the Viceroy. The Whitley Commission
on Labour was appointed. The Trades Disputes Act was
passed to provide conciliation machinery, prohibit sympathetic
strikes and limit the right to strike in public utility services.
The Bombay Riots Enquiry Committee was set up, and re¬
commended that “ the Government should take drastic
action against the activities of the communists in Bombay ” ;
it further raised the question whether the Trade Union Act
should not be so amended “as to exclude communists from
management in registered trade unions ”.

5. The Meerut Trial

In March, 1929, the Government’s main blow fell. The
principal active leaders of the working-class movement were
arrested from all over India and brought to the small inland
town of Meerut, far from any industrial centre, for trial. One
of the longest and most elaborate state trials in history opened.

Thirty-one leaders were originally arrested, and one more
was subsequently added. Their names may be recorded:
for, whatever their varying subsequent roles or activities, they
stand as pioneers of the Indian working-class movement;
and many of them are still to-day among the best leading
forces of the Indian working class. They were :

S. A. Dange: Assistant Secretary of the Trade Union
Congress; formerly sentenced in the Cawnpore trial;
General Secretary of the Girni Kamgar Union.

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 377

Kishorilal Ghosh : Secretary of the Bengal Provincial
Federation of Trade Unions.

D. R. Thengdi: Ex- President and Executive member of
the Trade Union Congress; member of the All-India
Congress Committee.

S. V. Ghate: Assistant Secretary of the Trade Union
Congress (1927) and Vice-President of the Bombay
Municipal Workers’ Union.

K. N. Joglekar: Organising Secretary of the G.I.P. Rail-
waymen’s Union; member of the All-India Congress
Committee.

S. H. Jhabwalla: Organising Secretary of the All-India
Railwaymen’s Federation; former Vice-President of the
Girni Kamgar Union.

Shaukat Usmani : sentenced in the Cawnpore trial ; Editor
of Urdu working-class paper in Bombay.

Muzaffar Ahmad: Vice-President of the Trade Union
Congress ; Secretary of the Bengal Workers’ and Peasants’
Party; sentenced in the Cawnpore trial.

Philip Spratt: former Executive member of the Trade
Union Congress.

B. F. Bradley : former member of the London District Com¬
mittee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union in Britain ;
Executive member of the G.I.P. Railwaymen’s Union
and of the Girni Kamgar Union; Vice-President of the
All-India Railwaymen’s Federation, and Treasurer of the
Joint Strike Committee in the Bombay textile strike.

S. S. Mirajkar : Assistant Secretary of the Girni Kamgar
Union.

Dharamvir Singh : member of the Legislative Council of the
United Provinces and Vice-President of the United
Provinces Workers’ and Peasants’ Party.

P. C. Joshi: Secretary of the United Provinces Workers’'
and Peasants’ Party.

A. A. Alwe : President of the Girni Kamgar Union.

R. Kasle : official of the Girni Kamgar Union.

Gopal Basak : President of the Socialist Youth Conference
in 1928.

G. M. Adhikari : B.Sc., contributor to the Bombay socialist
paper, the Spark.

Abdul Majid: left India in 1920 with the Khilafat Move-

378

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

ment. Visited Russia and was imprisoned on return.
Secretary of the Kirti Kisan (^Peasants) Party, Punjab,
and founder of the Punjab Youth League.

R. S. Nimbkar: Secretary of the Bombay Trades Council
and of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee ;
General Secretary of the All-India Workers’ and Peasants’
Party ; member of the All-India Congress Committee.

U. N. Mukharji: President of the United Provinces
Workers’ and Peasants’ Party.

K. N. Seghal : President of the Punjab Congress Com¬
mittee and Financial Secretary of the Punjab Provincial
Congress Committee; member of the All-India Youth
League.

R. R. Mitra: Secretary of the Bengal Jute Workers’ Union.
D. Goswami: Assistant Secretary of the Bengal Workers’

and Peasants’ Party ; prominent trade unionist.

Goura Shankar: E.C. member of the United Provinces
Workers’ and Peasants’ Party.

S. Huda : Secretary of the Bengal Transport Workers’ Union.
S. N. Bannerjee: President of the Bengal Jute Workers’

Union: previously sentenced to one year in connection
with the Kharagpur railway strike.

G. Chakravarty : official of the East India Railway Union ;
previously sentenced to one and a half years in connection
with the Kharagpur railway strike.

S. S. Josh : President of the first All-India Workers’ and
Peasants’ Conference.

M. G. Desai : Editor of the Bombay socialist journal, the Spark.

H. Prasad : active member of the Bengal Workers’ and
Peasants’ Party.

L. R. Kadam : Organiser of the Municipal Workers’ Union
at Jhansi.

The thirty-second, subsequently arrested, was Lester Hutchi¬
son, an English journalist, who, after the arrests, took on the
editorship of the New Spark, and was thereon also charged in
the trial.

It will be seen that the arrested men included the Vice-
President, a former President and two Assistant Secretaries of
the Trade Union Congress ; the Secretaries of the Bombay and
of the Bengal Provincial Trade Union Federations; all the
officials of the Girni Kamgar Union, most of those of the G.I.P.

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 379

Railwaymen’s Union, as well as those of a number of other
unions, and the Secretaries and other officials of the Workers’
and Peasants’ Parties in Bengal, Bombay and the United
Provinces. Three members of the All-India Congress Com¬
mittee were arrested, including the Bombay Provincial
Secretary of the Congress. Three of the four sentenced at
Cawnpore were again on trial. Three Englishmen were in¬
cluded. When these three representatives of the English
working-class movement stood in the dock with Indian workers,
and eventually went to prison with them, this was a historic
demonstration of living international working-class unity,
shattering the old barriers and constituting a landmark of deep
significance for the future fraternal relations of the British and
Indian peoples.

The arrested leaders of the Indian working-class movement
bore themselves in a manner which revealed that the Indian
working-class movement, even though still only in an initial
stage of organisation, had reached full consciousness and dignity
of its role. The speeches of the defence remain among the most
valuable documents of the Indian labour movement. A new
India was revealed in them.

By its role in this trial the Indian labour movement lived up
to the highest standards of the international labour movement,
and gave an example and an inspiration for those who have
to-day the responsibility to carry forward the flag of labour and
socialism in India.

The Government dragged out the trial for three and a half
years — four critical years of India’s history, during which the
best leaders of the working class were thus removed. No
attempt was made to present evidence to sustain the formal
charge, under Section 1 2 1 A of the Penal Code :

“ Whoever within or without British India conspires to
commit any of the offences punishable by Section 12 1 or to
deprive the King of the sovereignty of British India or any
part thereof, or conspires to overawe, by means of criminal
force or the show of criminal force, the Government of India
or any local Government, shall be punished with transporta¬
tion for life or any shorter term, or with imprisonment of
either description which may extend to ten years.”

It was admitted that no act could be brought forward to prove
the charge. Thus the High Court Judge summed up :

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

380

“ It is conceded that the accused persons have not been
charged with having done any overt illegal act in pursuance
of the alleged conspiracy.”

The Prosecutor declared :

“ The accused were not charged with holding communist
opinions, but with conspiring to deprive the King of his
sovereignty of India. It was unnecessary for the purposes of
the case to prove whether the accused did actually do any¬
thing; it would suffice if only conspiracy could be proved.”
There was no “ conspiracy ”. The socialist principles of the
accused were open and openly proclaimed ; the work of labour
organisation was equally open. There was no “ criminal
force ”. There was only the organisation and leadership of the
labour movement.

The real charge was revealed in the indictment, which
charged the prisoners with “ the incitement of antagonism
between capital and labour ”, “ the creation of Workers’ and
Peasants’ Parties, Youth Leagues, Unions, etc.”, and “ the
encouragement of strikes The entire weight of the evidence
was concerned with this activity, especially trade-union
activity. Of one of the prisoners, the Secretary of the Bengal
Jute Workers’ Union, the Prosecutor declared that his “ career
in the conspiracy began when he participated in the Calcutta
Scavengers’ strike ”. The dominant motive of the trial was
laid bare by the judge when he declared in his summing up :

“ Perhaps of deeper gravity was the hold acquired over
the Bombay textile workers, illustrated by the 1928 strike,
and the revolutionary policy of the Girni Kamgar Union.”
Yet this trial, as historic a trial for the suppression of a rising
labour movement as that of the Dorchester Labourers a century
ago in British labour history, was conducted under a Labour
Government, which accepted “ full responsibility ” for it (“ We
accept full responsibility. . . . The Secretary of State is
energetically backing up the Government of India ” : Dr.
Drummond Shiels at the Labour Party Conference at Brighton
in 1929). “ The machinery of the law must operate,” was the
judgement of the Daily Herald on June 25, 1929. “ The trial
should be expedited as quickly as possible,” wrote Sir Walter
Citrine on October 1, 1929, in answer to the appeal of the
Indian Trade Union Congress to the British Trades Union

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 381

Congress ; “ the offence with which the accused are charged is
a political offence, and one which in the opinion of the General
Council does not directly affect the Indian trade-union move¬
ment as such.” Later, after the trial was over and the Labour
Government out of office, in 1933 the National Joint Council of
the Trades Union Congress and Labour Party issued a pamph¬
let stating that “ the whole of the proceedings from beginning
to end are utterly indefensible and constitute something in the
nature of a judicial scandal

In January, 1933, savage sentences were awarded: trans¬
portation for life for Muzaffar Ahmad ; twelve years’ transpor¬
tation for Dange, Ghate, Joglekar, Nimbkar and Spratt ; ten
years’ transportation for Bradley, Mirajkar and Usmani ; and
so down to the lightest sentence of three years’ rigorous imprison¬
ment. The international agitation which followed was success¬
ful in securing drastic reduction of these sentences on appeal.

6. The Modern Period

The first years after the Meerut arrests were a difficult period
for the Indian labour movement. The strike movement in these
years, entering into the economic crisis, met with heavy defeats.

The Meerut trial, although, as in every such case, sowing
deep the seeds for the future strength and victory of the move¬
ment, dealt a heavy immediate blow to the labour movement.
The Indian working class, at such an early stage of develop¬
ment, could not easily at once replace this leadership which had
been removed. Therefore in the critical years of national
struggle which followed, the political role of the working class
was weakened — as had been the intention of imperialism.

Difficulties in the trade-union movement also followed. The
victory of the left-wing majority in the Trade Union Congress,
on the basis of the superior strength and practical work of
organisation achieved in the preceding two years, was finally
realised at the Nagpur Trade Union Congress at the end of
1929. The old reformist leadership, finding themselves in a
minority, refused to accept the democratic decision of the
majority, and split the Trade Union Congress, carrying away
the unions supporting them to form the Trade Union Feder¬
ation. “ The proceedings of the Executive Council of the
All-India Trade Union Congress have revealed beyond doubt
that the majority of its members are determined to commit the

THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

382

Congress to a policy with which we are in complete disagree¬
ment,” declared the statement issued in the names of N. M.
Joshi, Shiva Rao, Giri, Chaman Lai and others, and further
affirmed : “ We have no doubt that they will be carried by a
large and decisive majority in the Congress. Under these
circumstances we have to disassociate ourselves completely
from the resolutions of the Executive Council and we further
feel that no useful purpose will be served by continuing our
participation in the proceedings of the Congress.”

The left leadership, however, which came into control of the
Trade Union Congress lacked coherence, being composed of
very diverse elements, and with the Marxist leadership heavily
weakened by the Meerut arrests ; and a further split followed
in 1931.

These splits seriously weakened the growth of Indian trade
unionism for several years. Nevertheless, the urgent needs of
the situation, especially following the economic crisis, brought
into being ? movement for unity which steadily gathered force ;
and the last half decade has seen a renewed revival of the
movement to a higher point. In 1 932 the railwaymen’s unions,
which had remained aloof from both central organisations,
united with the Trade Union Federation. The two sections
of the Trade Union Congress (as distinct from the Trade
Union Federation) drew together in 1934, and achieved final
reunion in 1935. There remained the problem of the division
of the Trade Union Federation and the Trade Union Congress.
With deepened understanding on the part of the leadership on
both sides, the movement for co-operation advanced in both
camps. In 1936 a Joint Board was established between the two
bodies to promote common working. Finally in 1938 reunion
was achieved, although at first only in a provisional form. The
Trade Union Federation affiliated to the Trade Union
Congress, although at first provisionally for one year, and
retaining its autonomy within the Congress, with equal re¬
presentation for the two sections in the governing body of the
Congress. The Trade Union Congress has thus become once
again the uniting body of Indian trade unionism as a whole
(the Ahmedabad Labour Association under Gandhist inspira¬
tion still remains outside) ; and there is every hope that
the present partial unification will develop into complete
unification.

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 383

In the political field also new developments have followed in
the modern period. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Parties,
which, in view of their two-class character, could only form a
transitional stage of growth and no permanent basis for
political working-class organisation, passed out of the picture
after Meerut. In 1934 the Communist Party was formally
proclaimed illegal by the Government. Such measures could
not check the rapid growth of socialist and communist influence
and Marxist ideas. The communist role and influence is now
by common consent greater than it has ever been. A strongly
supported campaign, conducted with the support of the Trade
Union Congress, developed for the lifting of the ban on the
Communist Party. New accessions of strength were won after
the close of the national non-co-operation struggle of 1930-34,
as the younger national elements proceeded to draw the lessons
of their struggle. In 1934 a group of younger left nationalist
elements, who had come partially under the influence of
Marxist ideas in this period, formed the Congress Socialist
Party. The special character of the Congress Socialist Party
was that membership was made conditional on membership
of the National Congress ; the party thus constituted a wing
within the National Congress ; it operated mainly as an
apparatus within the Congress and discouraged mass member¬
ship. The objective effect of this programmatic and con¬
stitutional basis (whatever the intentions of the progressive
elements among its founders) inevitably represented an attempt
to subordinate the independence of the working-class move¬
ment to the control and discipline of the existing dominant
leadership of the National Congress, which meant, in practice,
of the bourgeoisie. This contradiction at the root of the Con¬
gress Socialist Party showed itself throughout its history in
its role at every critical stage of the working-class struggle.
The contradiction showed itself further in the conflict between
the left wing of the party, which sought co-operation with
the Communist Party and the working-class forces, and the
dominant reactionary right wing, which was hostile to the
Communist Party and to all independent working-class
activity. The formation of the Congress Socialist Party was
an important sign of the development of socialist influence
in the left nationalist ranks ; but it remained a limited group
without working-class membership.

Alongside the National Congress election victories in 1937,
and the formation of the Congress Provincial Ministries, a
marked revival of the working-class movement developed.
This was accompanied by a no less striking advance of the
peasant movement. In 1937 the number of strikes reached
379, or the highest number since 1921, and within seventeen of
the 1921 record ; 647,000 workers were affected, or the highest
number on record; and the total number of working days
covered was 8,982,000, or the highest since 1929. In 45 per
cent, of the strikes the workers were successful in securing
concessions. The peak was the Bengal jute strike, drawing out
the great majority of the jute-workers, 225,000 in all, and
securing trade-union recognition and other concessions.
Notable was the extension of the strike movement even to
Ahmedabad, the previous stronghold of the Gandhist class-
peace unionism; here the Bombay Congress Government
brought into operation the hated Section 1 44 of the Penal Code,
prohibiting meetings of five or more, against which the
National Congress has consistently protested. The high water¬
mark of 1938 was the Cawnpore textile strike, against the
refusal of the employers to implement the award of the
Congress Enquiry Committee of the previous year; here a
model of Congress-Labour unity was achieved, the United
Provinces Congress Committee giving full support to the
workers’ demands; and after a fifty-five days’ struggle a
notable victory was achieved, including recognition of the
union. The Bombay protest strike of November, 1938, with
the full support of the united Trade Union Congress, against
the dangerous Industrial Disputes Bill (imposing conciliation
machinery with a four months’ delay on the right to strike, as
well as imposing unsatisfactory regulations on the registration
of unions) was a powerful demonstration of working-class
consciousness and a warning to the Bombay Congress Govern¬
ment to implement the pledges of the Congress election
programme in respect of trade-union rights.

7. Problems of the Working-Class Movement
The war has brought gigantic new problems and responsi¬
bilities to the working-class movement. Already in the first
months the ferment developing, the strike movement and the
political strikes which have taken place, have indicated the

RISE OF LABOUR AND SOCIALISM 385

great new possibilities which are opening out. The political
consciousness of the vanguard has reached a high level and has
begun already to show the fruit of the previous decades of
growth. The Indian working class has a great role to play in
the future development of the situation in India and in the
international working-class movement.

At the same time, alongside the central political tasks
now opening out, basic tasks for the strengthening of mass
organisation and working-class unity have still to be achieved.
Unity has already been partially achieved in the trade-union
field, but it has still to be completed. This applies not only to
the Trade Union Congress, where the provisional unification
requires to be carried to completion, but also to the further
question of trade-union unity, the closer association or
merging of the present multiplicity of unions even in the
same industry. A big step forward was taken by the All-India
Textile Workers’ Conference in the beginning of 1939, attended
by all the textile unions in the country (except Ahmedabad)
and the decision to form an All-India Textile Workers’ Feder¬
ation. The size of the country and the differences of conditions
do not make feasible in all cases single All-India Unions ; but
the aim of a single union for each industry in each province or
major industrial centre, with All-India Federations for each
industry, represents the way forward to closer unity.

No less urgent is the task of development of mass organisation,
alike on the basis of the factories and in the unions. Trade
Unions are still extremely weak, and in many cases organisa¬
tions of leaders rather than of the main body of workers. The
official statistics for 1935-36 show 236 registered unions, but
returns from only 205, with a total membership of 268,000, of
whom 149,000 were in railways, 26,000 in textiles and 26,000
among seamen. Since then considerable advances have been
achieved ; the Cawnpore textile union alone at the beginning
of 1939 had 18,000 members. It should be remembered that,
as stated in the Government report “ India in 1934-35 ”
(p. 29), “the number of unregistered unions is large: the
figures cited above therefore do not truly represent the extent
of the movement in India ”. But even after allowing for
members of unregistered unions and also for the Ahmedabad
Labour Association (which is a class-peace organisation) , Shiva
Rao, in his recent book “ The Industrial Worker in India ”,

386 THE INDIAN PEOPLE IN MOVEMENT

published in 1939, places the total number of organised workers
in India at not above 350,000. This is a very low figure, not
only in proportion to the total industrial proletariat in India,
but even in relation to the 5 million or more immediately
organisable workers in “ organised industries ”, mines and
transport. The difficulties of stable trade-union organisation
in India are inevitably extreme, both from the desperate
poverty and the denial of education and cultural facilities to
the workers, as well as from the general character of the police
system and denial of democratic rights. Nevertheless, a
beginning has been achieved in the past two decades, and a
further overcoming of these difficulties, and the solving of the
problem of stable trade-union organisation in the main
industries, is one of the essential immediate tasks of the
working-class movement in India.

Political organisation of the class-conscious workers is of
decisive importance for further advance. Hitherto, the
socialist and communist movements have reached only a
relatively small number in membership. Problems of unity
have also presented themselves in sharp forms. It should not
be taken for granted that socialism in India must necessarily
develop along the lines of division into two camps, as has been
the case in Europe, where imperialism has been the underlying
cause of the split of the labour movement. Here also the war
is bringing new conditions and new possibilities of advance.

The basic political question of the Indian working-class
movement, underlying all the many forms of conflicts of
tendencies through its history, is the question of the develop¬
ment of an independent class movement of the workers, freed
from the alien channels of bourgeois influence (whether
imperialist influence, or bourgeois national influence, both of
which have sought to deflect it from its aims), but at the same
time participating in the broad front of the national struggle
for independence, the victory of which is most directly the
interest of the working class, in common with all the progressive
forces of Indian society. Of decisive importance for the
accomplishment of this task is the development of the in¬
dependent political party of the Indian working class on the
basis of Marxism.

PART V

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA
TO-DAY

Chapter XIV. THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA

1 The Princes

2 Communal Divisions

Chapter XV. THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW
CONSTITUTION

1 Imperialism and Self-Government

2 Pre-1917 Reform Policy

3 The Question of Dominion Status

4 The New Constitution of 1 935

Chapter XVI. THE NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON
THE EVE OF THE WAR

1 The New Awakening

2 The Election Victory of 1937

3 Congress Provincial Ministries

4 The Federal Constitution and Developing Crisis

Chapter XVII. INDIA IN WORLD POLITICS

1 The Strategic Significance of India for British World

Policy

2 The Significance of India for British Internal Politics

3 India and World Peace

Chapter XIV: THE DARK FORCES
IN INDIA

“ Divide et impera was the old Roman motto, and it should be ours.” —
Lord Elphinstone, Governor of Bombay, minute of May 14, 1859.

The rising forces of Indian nationalism, of the peasant
revolt and of the working-class movement represent the
progressive elements of Indian society. But they are by no
means the whole picture of Indian society. Although they
constitute the overwhelming majority of the Indian people,
they are not the whole people. If they were, if the conflict
were a simple conflict between a united Indian people ranged
in one camp, and the handful of British rulers ranged in the
other, it would be already over, or rather, the domination
could never have arisen.

In a society characterised by arrested development, as is
the case with India under imperialist rule, it is inevitable that
the social conservative forces should assume an importance out
of all proportion to their inner strength. These decaying forces
helped to make possible the original conquest. As the tide of
national awakening sweeps forward, the role of these outdated
relics appears to grow more important and prominent, precisely
because they are the sole surviving props of imperialist rule.

The total numbers of the British in India, according to the
Simon Report, came to 156,000 (registered as Europeans, but
mainly British) ; the 1931 Census showed a total of 168,000.
Of these, 60,000 were in the army ; 2 1 ,000 were in business or
private occupations; and 12,000 were in the civilian govern¬
ment services. This makes an effective total of less than 1 00,000
occupied adults directly representing the imperialist domina¬
tion over the country, or 1 per 4,000 of the Indian population.
It is obvious that, even after every precaution has been taken
to disarm the Indian population, and especially to maintain
all heavy arms, artillery and air-power in exclusively British
hands, such a force could not hope to maintain continuous
domination over the 370 millions of India by power alone.
A social basis within the Indian population is indispensable.

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

390

The maintenance of a social basis, allied to imperialism,
within the Indian population is the condition of the mainten¬
ance of imperialist rule. As in the case of every reactionary
rule, and especially of alien rule, the division of the people is
the necessary law of the rulers’ statecraft. But such a social
basis cannot be found in the progressive elements which are
straining against imperialism. It can only be found in the
reactionary elements whose interests are opposed to those of
the people. We have already seen how British rule has
consciously built on the basis of the landlord class, which it
has largely brought into existence by its own decrees as an act
of State policy. Along with these are various trading interests
and money-lending interests closely allied with the imperialist
system of exploitation, and looking to imperialism for pro¬
tection, as well as the subordinate official strata. We have also
seen how imperialism has abandoned the socially reforming
role of a century ago, and to-day preserves and protects, so
far as possible (always in the name of impartial non-inter¬
ference in the social customs and religious beliefs of the
population), all that is culturally backward in the life of the
people against the national demands for reform, as well as
utilising to the utmost the lingering reactionary lines of division
such as caste (the separate representation of the depressed
classes, and encouragement of parties founded upon this basis) .
But nowhere is this policy more signally demonstrated than
in two spheres which have come into special prominence in the
recent period, the question of the Indian Princes or so-called
“ Indian States ”, and the question of communal divisions,
especially in the form of Hindu-Moslem antagonisms.

At the present time these two problems have become
exceptionally serious and urgent. With the new role adroitly
proposed by imperialism at the present stage for the Indian
Princes in the scheme of Federation, and with the new Con¬
gress campaign for democratic rights in the Indian States, the
whole question of the Indian States has been thrown into the
forefront of immediate political questions. There is also no
doubt that communal difficulties have taken on an especially
sharp character in the present period, and that this sharpness
is at present increasing.

Both these problems are in reality aspects of the general
problem confronting the national movement in respect of the

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA 391

reactionary forces in India. The advance of the activity of
the reactionary forces marches parallel with the advance of
the national liberation movement. This is inherent in the
character of the present period. These are phenomena of the
break-up of imperialist rule. They represent the calling into
play of the last reserves.

The solution of these problems is vital for the victory of
democracy in India.

1. The Princes

Imperialism has divided India into unequal segments —
British India and the so-called “ Indian States The
fantastic and irrational character of this division, which is far
more than an administrative division, and extends deeply
into social, economic and political conditions, can only be
appreciated by an examination of the map. Pre-nineteenth
century Germany was an orderly system by comparison with
the anarchic riot of confusion and petty “ States ” which is
the map of India under British rule.

From west to east, from north to south, from the 200 States
of Kathiawar or the score of States of Rajputana in the west
to Manipur and the score of Khasi chieftainships in the extreme
east, from Kashmir and the minute Simla Hill States in the
north to Mysore and the Madras States in the south, the
limitless miscellany of hundreds of States of every shape and
size extend over two-fifths to nearly half of India (45 per cent,
now that Burma is separated from India), with boundaries
which defy the cartographer. There are 563 States with a
total area of 712,000 square miles and a population of 81
million (in the 1931 census) or nearly one-quarter (24 per
cent.) of the Indian population. They range from States like
Hyderabad, as large as Italy, with 14 millions of population,
to petty States like Lawa with an area of nineteen square miles,
or the Simla Hill States, which are little more than small
holdings. The variety of their status and jurisdiction defies
any generalised description. There are 108 major States
whose rulers are directly included in the Chamber of Princes.
There are 127 minor States which indirectly return twelve re¬
presentatives to the Chamber of Princes. The remaining 328
States are in practice special forms of landholding, with certain
feudal rights, but with very limited jurisdiction. In the more

392

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

important States a British Resident holds the decisive power ;
the lesser States are grouped under British Political Agents, who
manage bunches of them in different geographical regions.

To call them “ States ” is really a misnomer ; for they are,
rather, artificially maintained ghosts or preserved ruins of
former States, whose puppet princes are maintained for
political reasons by an entirely different ruling Power. While
plenty of petty despotism, tyranny and arbitrary lawlessness
is freely allowed, all decisive political power is in British hands.
What Marx wrote already in 1853 is still more true to-day:

“ As to the native States, they virtually ceased to exist
from the moment they became subsidiary to or protected by
the Company. . . . The conditions under which they are
allowed to retain their apparent independence are at the
same time the conditions of a permanent decay, and of an
utter inability of improvement. Organic weakness is the
constitutional law of their existence, as of all existences
living upon sufferance. It is therefore not the native
States, but the native Princes and courts about whose main¬
tenance the question resolves. The native Princes are the
stronghold of the present abominable English system and
the greatest obstacles to Indian progress.”

(Marx: “ The Native States ”, New York Daily Tribune,
July 25, 1853.)

That was eighty-six years ago. The Indian “ States ”, or
rather, Princes, still linger on in their “permanent decay” ; and
there are even macabre new attempts to galvanise the corpses
in order to stage a transparent constitutional make-believe.

Why did British rule, which in general sought to replace
the motley disarray of India on the eve of the conquest, and
has freely boasted of so doing, by a uniform political and
administrative system, nevertheless retain and zealously
preserve right up to the present day this phantasmagoria of
tottering States, whose existence defeats all administrative
uniformity, all uniformity of legislation or maintenance of
the most elementary minimum standards, or even statistical
uniformity? Abstractly considered, such a procedure might
appear most irrational from the standpoint of bourgeois rule,
from the standpoint of the merchant’s ledger or the investor’s
placing of capital, requiring the most uniform and economical

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA 393

administrative system for the convenient penetration of the
country as a whole. In fact, it is no more irrational than the
maintenance of the monarchy and aristocracy (in a similar
emasculated and ghostly form) in bourgeois England. The
reasons are “ reasons of State ”. The alien bourgeois rule in
India requires the feudal basis for its support.

This policy of assiduous preservation of the Princes as
puppets was by no means consistently followed until the
modern period. In the first half of the nineteenth century,
while the British domination was still vigorous and confidently
advancing, a policy of expanding absorption of the decaying
States into British territory, under any and every pretext, was
actively followed. But the turning-point came with the Revolt
of 1 857. The Revolt of 1 857 was the last attempt of the decay¬
ing feudal forces, of the former rulers of the country, to
turn back the tide of foreign domination. As has been already
pointed out, the progressive forces of the time, of the educated
class, representing the nascent bourgeoisie, supported British
rule against the Revolt. The Revolt was crushed; but the
lesson was learned. From this point the feudal forces no
longer presented the main potential menace and rival to British
rule, but the main barrier against the advance of the awakening
masses. The progressive elements, which had formerly been
treated with special favour, were now regarded with increasing
suspicion as the potential new leadership of the awakening
masses. The policy was consciously adopted of building more
and more decisively on the feudal elements, on the preservation
of the Princes and their States, as the bulwark of British rule.

Already in the years just before the Revolt Sir William
Sleeman had warned the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie,
that “ the annexation of Oudh would cost the British power
more than the value of ten such kingdoms, and would in¬
evitably lead to a mutiny of the Sepoys ” ; and had put
forward the view that the Indian States should be regarded
as “ breakwaters ”, since “ when they are all swept away,
we shall be left to the mercy of our native army, which may
not always be sufficiently under our control ”. But Dal¬
housie, who was an energetic and relentless innovator and a
protagonist of the policy of expansion, was not convinced;
and it required the experience of the war of 1857 to bring
about the decisive turn of policy.

394

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

The Queen’s Proclamation of 1858 proclaimed the new
policy : “ We shall respect the rights, dignity and honour of
the Native Princes as our own.” The purpose of the policy
was frankly described by Lord Canning, the Governor-
General who succeeded Dalhousie, in 1 860 :

“It was long ago said by Sir John Malcolm that if we
made all India into Zillahs (or British Districts) it was not
in the nature of things that our Empire should last fifty
years ; but that if we could keep up a number of Native
States without political power, but as royal instruments, we
should exist in India as long as our naval supremacy was
maintained. Of the substantial truth of this opinion I have
no doubt; and the recent events have made it more
deserving of our attention than ever.”

(Lord Canning, April 30, i860.)

The calculation was thus to preserve the Indian Princes as
“ royal instruments ”, “ without political power ”, for the
maintenance of British rule. A decade and a half later the
Viceroy, Lord Lytton, similarly described the significance of
the Royal Titles Bill of 1876, by which Queen Victoria was
proclaimed Empress of India, as marking the beginning of “a
new policy by virtue of which the Crown of England should
henceforth be identified with the hopes, the aspirations, the
sympathies and the interests of a powerful native aristocracy ”.

The preservation of the Indian States from the dissolution
which would have been sooner or later their fate is thus an
instrument of modern British policy, and by no means an
expression of the survival of ancient institutions and traditions
in India. As Professor Rushbrook-Williams, the principal
Government propagandist on behalf of the Princes (former
Joint Director of the Indian Princes Special Organisation,
Adviser to the Indian States Delegation at the Round Table
Conference, and also Director of Public Information of the
Government of India up to 1925), declared in 1930 :

“ The rulers of the Native States are very loyal to their
British connection. Many of them owe their very existence
to Bi itish justice and arms. Many of them would not be in
existence to-day had not British power supported them
during the struggles of the latter part of the eighteenth and
the early part of the nineteenth century. Their affection

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA 395

and loyalty are important assets for Britain in the present
troubles and in the readjustments which must come. . . .

“ The situation of these feudatory States, checkerboarding
all India as they do, are a great safeguard. It is like
establishing a vast network of friendly fortresses in debatable
territory. It would be difficult for a general rebellion
against the British to sweep India because of this network of
powerful loyal Native States.”

(L. F. Rushbrook-Williams, in the Evening Standard,
May 28, 1930.)

The “ fortresses ” are, however, not so strong as the amiable
Government propagandist of these slave-States of reaction would
like to pretend. That the majority of the Princes only owe
the continuance of their rule against the will of their peoples
to the protection of the British power is widely recognised.

“ Were a referendum taken to-day among the subjects,
they would cheerfully vote for the annexation of the States
to British India. The States exist to-day because of the
mercy of the British.”

(S. C. Ranga Iyer, “ India, Peace or War ”.)

“ Hardly any of the States have the attributes required
for the making of a modern nation State. The frontiers
are usually artificial and do not correspond with differences
in race or language or culture. Further the ties which bind
the dynasty to the State are usually accidental or artificial
and the connection is often less than 200 years old. On the
other hand the cultural and social links which connect the
State subjects with their cousins in British India are almost
everywhere of immense strength and antiquity. It would
seem to follow that the ruler’s hold upon the affections of his
subjects is far weaker than is generally said to be the case.”

(J. T. Gwynn, “ Congress and the States ”, Manchester
Guardian, May 12, 1939.)

The Butler Committee Report in 1929 laid down in formal
terms the obligation of the British power to maintain the
Princes against “ rebellion or insurrection ” :

“ The duty of the Paramount Power to protect the States
against rebellion or insurrection is derived from the clauses
of treaties and sanads, from usage and from the promise of

396 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

the King Emperor to maintain unimpaired the privileges,
rights and dignities of the Princes. . . . The promise of
the King Emperor to maintain unimpaired the privileges,
rights and dignities of the Princes carries with it a duty to
protect the Prince against attempts to eliminate him and to
substitute another form of government.”

(Report of the Indian States Committee, 1929, Sections

49 and 5°-)

What sort of regime is thus maintained by British power?
Jawaharlal Nehru describes in his autobiography his feeling of
the general atmosphere of an Indian State :

“ A sense of oppression comes; it is stifling and difficult
to breathe, and below the still or slow-moving waters there
is stagnation and putrefaction. One feels hedged, circum¬
scribed, bound down in mind and body. And one sees
I the utter backwardness and misery of the people, contrasting
l vividly with the glaring ostentation of the prince’s palace.
How much of the wealth of the State flows into that palace
for the personal needs and luxuries of the prince, how little
goes back to the people in the form of any service. . . .

“ A veil of mystery surrounds these States. Newspapers
are not encouraged there, and at the most a literary or
semi-official weekly might flourish. Outside newspapers
are often barred. Literacy is very low, except in some of
the Southern States — Travancore, Cochin, etc. — where it is
far higher than in British India. The principal news that
comes from the States is of a viceregal visit with all its pomp
and ceremonial and mutually complimentary speeches, or
of an extravagantly celebrated marriage or birthday of the
Ruler, or an agrarian rising. Special laws protect the
| princes from criticism, even in British India, and within
the States the mildest criticism is rigorously suppressed.
Public meetings are almost unknown, and even meetings
for social purposes are often banned.”

(Jawaharlal Nehru, “Autobiography”, p. 531.)

The special restriction of the Press in the Indian States was
explicitly imposed by the Government of India Notification
of June 25, 1891 : “ No newspaper or other printed work,
whether periodical or other, containing public news or com¬
ments on public news, shall without the written permission for

THE DARK FORGES IN INDIA 397

the time being in force of the Political Agent be edited, printed
or published after August i, 1891, in any local area ad¬
ministered by the Governor-General in Council, but not
forming part of British India.” This has been further supple¬
mented by further special restriction of any criticism within
British India on the conditions in the States, codified in the
States Protection Act of 1934.

It is doubtful whether there has been any regime in history
to paiallel that of the Indian puppet Princes under British
protection. There are a few of the Indian States which have
been administered on levels above the low levels of British
India, and which have even carried out partially realised
schemes of compulsory education or established very rudi¬
mentary forms of restricted advisory representative bodies.
But these are exceptions. In the majority the servitude,
despotism and oppression exceed description. Corruption
and oppression have been sufficiently familiar in the history
of Asiatic despotisms. But these have at any rate had to face
the self-acting checks of the fear of external aggression or
internal risings. Both these checks are removed by the British
protection ; the power of supervision to control or remove rulers
in case of flagrant misgovernment is in practice used, not to
check misgovernment, but to check disloyalty. The Princes
are functionless puppets fulfilling a degraded role. Hence the
notorious degradation and sufferings of the people in the Indian
States under conditions of backwardness extreme even for India.

The declaration of the States Peoples’ Conference (the organ
of the popular democratic movement in the States) in 1939
summed up the character of the regime of these Princes :

“ In these states, big or small, with very few exceptions,
personal, autocratic rule prevails. There is no rule of law
and taxation is excessive and unbearable. Civil liberties are
crushed. The privy purse of the Rulers is usually not fixed
and even where it is fixed this is not adhered to. On the one
hand there is the extravagance and luxury of the Princes, on
the other the extreme poverty of the people.

“ With the hard-earned money of the poverty stricken and
miserable people, enjoyment is bought and luxury is
flaunted by their Rulers in foreign countries and in India.
This system cannot continue. No civilised people can

398 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

tolerate it. The whole argument of history is against it ;
the temper of the Indian people cannot submit to it.”

(Statement of the Standing Committee of the All-
India States Peoples’ Conference, June, 1939.)

The clearest indication of the character of the administration
of these States is to be found in their budgets.

“ The King of England receives roughly one in 1,600 of
the national revenue, the King of Belgium one in 1,000, the
King of Italy one in 500, the King of Denmark one in 300,
the Emperor of Japan one in 400. . . . No king receives one
in 1 7 like the Maharani of Travancore (which is the most
progressive State in India), one in 13 as the Nizam of
Hyderabad or the Maharajah of Baroda, or one in 5 as the
Maharajahs of Kashmir and Bikanir. The world would be
scandalised to know that not a few princes appropriate one
in 3 and one in 2 of the revenues of the State.”

(A. R. Desai, “ Indian Feudal States and the National
Liberation Struggle ”.)

Here is the budget for 1929-30 of the Bikanir State, which is
especially praised and favoured by imperialism :

Rupees.

Civil List .....*. 1,255,000

Wedding of the Prince
Building and Roads
Extension of Royal Palaces
Royal Family
Education
Medical Service
Public Utility
Sanitation

82,500

618,384

426,614

224,864

222,979

188,138

30,761

5>729

Education, medical service, public utilities and sanitation thus
receive less than one-fourth of what goes to the Prince, his
family and palaces. In the case of Jamnagar, out of a total
revenue of £1 million in 1926-27 no less than £700,000 went
to the personal costs of the Prince, while expenditure on
education was 1 -5 per cent, and on medical relief 0-9 per cent.

What are the conditions of the people who have the privilege
to live under this administration ? The Indian States represent
the most backward agrarian economy of a feudal type. In only

—

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA

399

a few is there any industrial development. Slavery is rampant
in many :

“ There are Slave Communities in many of the Rajputana
States, and in various States of the Western India States
Agency, including the States of Kathiawar. According to
the Census Report of 1921, in Rajputana and Central India
alone there were in all 160,735 slaves of the Chakar and
Daroga classes.”

(P. L. Chudgar, “ Indian Princes under British Pro¬
tection ”, 1929, p. 33.)

Forced labour, which may be imposed for any of a variety of
services, with no remuneration other than food, is the regular
rule.

“ The system of what is known as Veth and Begar (mean¬
ing forced labour) prevails in almost all the Indian States ;
and all classes of labourers, workmen and artisans are com¬
pelled to work for the Princes and their officials, in many
cases the only remuneration being the barest necessity of
food. These subjects are compelled to work at any time and
for any period that the State may require. . . . Even the
women, young or old, married or widows, are not exempt.

If any of these people, men or women, are infirm and cannot
work properly, they are flogged or otherwise tortured.

“ To the knowledge of the writer, poor old women of sixty 1
have been severely flogged by constables. This was done
with bamboo sticks in public streets, and the crime for which
they were punished was merely that of pleading exemption
from forced labour on the ground of their infirmity.”

{Ibid., p. 37.)

There are no civil rights.

“ No subject has a right to seek redress for infringement of
his rights by the Prince, the Prime Minister or State. The
Prince can arbitrarily order the confiscation or forfeiture of
the rights or property of any subject. He may impose fines
to any amount, and may adopt every conceivable means of
extorting payment. He can throw anyone into prison for
any indefinite period without charge or trial.”

{Ibid., pp. 72-3.)

Taxes are imposed at will, to grind even the poorest in order to
provide the insatiable demands of the palace.

400

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

“ The taxes as they obtain in the State of Nawanagar give
a fairly accurate idea of taxes common to all States. The
first list comprises taxes on professions and on persons, such
as labourers and artisans, on cattle, on betrothals, marriages,
births, deaths and funerals. It is to be noticed that there are
also taxes on such small concerns as the hand grinding mills
of widows which provide the sole means of subsistence of
these poor women. . . .

“ To return to the land tax ... in the case of payments in
cash this tax is imposed in the proportion of four shillings per
acre, if in land, one fourth of the crops. In practice the rate
increases. The States share works out at about 40%. All
other taxes . . . amount at a very modest estimate to about
10%. So that only 50% is left to the cultivator . . .

“ In addition ... he must also help to defray the cost of a
Chief’s marriage, or the marriage of a member of the Chief’s
family and pay toil on the birth of a son to the Chief and on
such ceremonies as the funeral of a Chief’s wife or mother.”

[Ibid., pp. 45-7.)

The regime of the Indian Princedoms provides the most
extreme oppression and misery without parallel in the modern
world precisely because it combines the most primitive feudal
oppression, including remnants of direct slavery below, with the
highest imperialist power and exploitation above.

This is the regime which British rule has not only preserved
and artificially perpetuated over two-fifths of India, but in the
modern period brings increasingly into the forefront and seeks
to give added weight and prominence in the affairs of India as a
whole. As the national movement of liberation has advanced,
so imperialism has increasingly thrown the weight of its policy
on the alliance with the Princes, and sought to make the Princes
its counter-force against the national movement. In 1921 the
Chamber of Princes was instituted. The role of the Princes is
the corner-stone of the Federal Constitution projected by the
Act of 1935. The Princes are given over two-fifths of the re¬
presentation in the Upper House, and one-third of the repre¬
sentation in the Lower House. The purpose was very clearly
stated by Lord Reading in the parliamentary debates :

“ If the Princes come into a Federation of All India . . .
there will always be a steadying influence. . . . What is it

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA 4OI

wc have most to fear? There are those who agitate for
independence for India, for the right to secede from the
Empire altogether. I believe myself that it is an insignificant
minority that is in favour, but it is an articulate minority and
it has behind it the organisation of the Congress. It becomes
important, therefore, that we should get what steadying
influence we can against this view. . . . There will be
approximately 33 per cent, of the Princes who will be
members of the Legislature with 40 per cent, in the Upper
Chamber. There are of course large bodies of Indians who
do not take the view of the Congress. So that with that
influence in the federated Legislature I am not afraid in the
slightest degree of anything that may happen, even if Con¬
gress managed to get the largest proportion of votes.”

Thus even if the Congress secures “ the largest proportion of
votes ”, any such result of the electoral expression of the people
is to be defeated by the Indian Princes who represent nobody
except the British Government. Such are the “ representative
institutions ” offered by imperialism to the Indian people.

Even so, this scheme has met with opposition from the
Princes, who seek still further safeguards for their position.
The Indian Princes’ Conference in June, 1939, rejected the
proposed terms for their entry into the Federation.

In the most recent period the advance of the national
democratic movement is more and more powerfully sweeping
past the rotten barriers of the puppet States. The States
Peoples’ Conference, which organises the popular movement in
the States, has rapidly grown in strength. Active struggles for
elementary civil rights have developed in a whole series of
States.

This advance of the popular movement in the States has also
been reflected in changes in the policy of the National Congress.
In the past the National Congress refrained from taking up
directly agitation and activity in the Indian States. The policy
of “ non-interference ” was mistakenly followed, in the
imaginary hope of attaining some kind of solidarity with the
puppet Princes instead of with the 80 million Indians oppressed
under them. “ Up to now ”, Gandhi declared at the Round
Table Conference, “ the Congress has endeavoured to serve the
Princes by refraining from any interference in their domestic

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

402

and internal affairs.” And again: “ I feel and I know that
they have the interests of their subjects at heart. There is no
difference between them and me, except that we are common
people and they are, God has made them, noblemen, princes.
I wish them well; I wish them all prosperity.”

This disastrous policy was defeated by events. The Congress
voluntarily limited its own jurisdiction to British India, and,
although claiming to be an All-Indian national body, did not
attempt to set up any parallel organisation under its leadership
in the Indian States. But the violent repression conducted in
the recent period by the Princes, including in the so-called most
“ progressive ” States, like Travancore and Mysore, against the
most elementary beginnings of a popular movement or sym¬
pathy with the national cause, compelled the Indian National
Movement to awaken and take up the fight. The developments
of 1938-39 saw the first steps of the National Congress to take
up the fight for democratic rights and the right of existence in
the Indian States. The question of the support of the civil dis¬
obedience movement in the States became a burning issue in
the National Congress.

The Haripura Session of the National Congress in 1 938 had
declared the general principles of Congress policy in relation to
the States :

“ The Congress stands for the same political, social and
economic freedom in the States as in the rest of India and
considers the States as an integral part of India which cannot
be separated. The Purna Swaraj or complete independence
which is the objective of Congress is for the whole of India,
inclusive of the States, for the integrity and unity of India
must be maintained in freedom as it has been maintained in
subjection.

“ The only kind of federation that can be acceptable to
Congress is one in which the States participate as free units
enjoying the same measure of democracy and freedom as in
the rest of India.

“ The Congress therefore stands for full responsible
Government and the guarantee of civil liberties in the States
and deplores the present backward conditions and utter lack
of freedom and the suppression of civil liberties in many of
the States.”

THE DARK FORGES IN INDIA 4O3

At the same time the Haripura resolution laid down a
measure of self-limitation of Congress activity in the States : •

“ The internal struggle of the people in the States must not
be made in the name of the Congress. For this purpose in¬
dependent organisations should be started and continued,
where they exist already in the States.”

By 1939 the Tripuri Session of the Congress partially revised
this position :

“ The Congress is of the opinion that the resolution of the
Haripura Session of the Congress relating to the States, has
answered the expectations raised by it, and has justified itself
by encouraging the people of the States to organise them¬
selves and conduct their own movements for freedom. The
Haripura policy was conceived in the best interests of the
people in order to enable them to develop self-reliance and
strength. This policy was dictated by the circumstances but
it was never conceived as an obligation. The Congress has
always possessed the right, as it is its duty, to guide the
people of the States and lend them its influence. The great
awakening that is taking place among the people may lead
to a relaxation or a complete removal of the restraint which
the Congress has imposed upon itself, thus resulting in the
ever increasing identification of the Congress with the States
peoples.”

It will be seen that the present Congress policy still looks
only to reforms within the continuing structure of the States
and under the continued rule of the Princes. Such a position
can only be a half-way house, a stage in the awakening of the
national movement to the issue.

The Indian States can have no place in a free India. The bisection
of India into British India and the India of the Princes corresponds to
no natural line of division, to no historic necessity and to no need or
sentiment of the people, but is an administrative manoeuvre of imperialism
to hold the people divided. For the national movement there can be only
one Indian people, with equal rights and equal citizenship. The
complete merging of the Indian States into a United India, the wiping
out of the relics of feudal oppression and the unification of the Indian
people in a real Federation, based on the natural geographical-economic-
cultural divisions and groupings of the people ( not a so-called

404 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

“ Federation ” which is only an elaborate machine to preserve existing
autocracy and suppress the will of the people), is vital for the unity of
the Indian nation, for the progressive development of India and for the
realisation of democracy in India.

2. Communal Divisions

The policy of the division of the Indian people through the
instrument of the Princes is closely paralleled by the policy in
relation to the Hindus and Moslems.

The type of question here arising, known as the “ com¬
munal ” problem or question of the relations between the
different religious “ communities ”, mainly the Hindus,
representing a little over two-thirds of the population, the
Moslems, representing just over one-fifth of the population, and
other minor religious groupings, totalling one-tenth of the
population, has special features in India, and is a serious issue
for the national movement. But it is by no means a type of
question peculiar to India.

Under certain conditions the mingling of divers races or
religions in a single country can give rise to acute difficulties,
sometimes even riots and bloodshed. Orangemen and
Catholics in Northern Ireland ; Arabs and Jews in Palestine
under the Mandate; Slavs and Jews in Tsarist Russia; so-
called “Aryans” and Jews in Nazi Germany: these are
familiar issues of the twentieth-century world, without need¬
ing to go back to earlier examples. Anti-semitism in Europe is
to-day the sharpest expression of this type of racial-religious
division and antagonism.

Historical experience makes it possible to define very
precisely the conditions under which this type of problem arises.

In Palestine before the British Mandate Arabs and Jews lived
peaceably together for centuries. Since British rule was
established, and since the forcible introduction of Zionist
immigration by imperialist armed power and under the aegis
of Western finance-capital, violent conflicts have arisen, which
are sometimes described as racial or religious conflicts, but
represent in reality a national struggle for independence
against invasion and alien domination.

In Tsarist Russia, especially d.uring the later years of the
decline and impending fall of Tsarism, pogroms of the Jews
blackened the pages of its history and sickened the conscience

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA 405

of the world. These pogroms were widely regarded as un¬
controllable outbreaks of the ignorant and savage Russian
masses. Only the subsequent publication of the secret-police
records finally proved, what had long been a matter of accusa¬
tion, and had been sufficiently visible from the peculiar relations
of the Government with the “ Black Hundreds ” or hooligan
“patriotic” organisation, that the pogroms were directly in¬
spired, initiated and controlled by the Government. From the
day that the Russian people won power over their own country,
the pogroms completely ceased. In the Union of Soviet Repub¬
lics the most divers races and religions live happily together.

In Germany under the Weimar Republic Germans and Jews
lived peacefully together. Under Nazi Germany the pogrom
regime has transferred its old base from Tsarist Russia to
Central Europe.

There is thus no natural inevitable difficulty from the co¬
habitation of differing races or religions in one country. The
difficulties arise from social-political conditions. They arise,
in particular, wherever a reactionary regime is endeavouring
to maintain itself against the popular movement. They are
the surest sign of the impending downfall of a regime.

In India we are confronted with a similar type of problem.

There are in India (1931 Census) 239 million Hindus,
representing 68 per cent, of the population, of whom 178
millions are in British India, where they are 65-5 per cent, of
the population, and 61 millions in the States, where they are
78 per cent. There are 78 million Moslems or 22 per cent, of
the population, of whom the proportions in British India are
67 millions or 24-7 per cent., and in the States io-6 millions or
I3'5 Per cent. These proportions would be affected by the
subsequent separation of Burma from India, since the third
largest grouping, that of the Buddhists, with 13 millions, is
almost entirely in Burma.

Prior to British rule there is no trace of the type of Hindu-
Moslem conflicts associated with British rule, and especially
with the latest period of British rule. There were wars between
States which might have Hindu or Moslem rulers ; but these
wars at no time took on the character of a Hindu-Moslem
antagonism. Moslem rulers employed Hindus freely in the
highest positions, and vice versa.

The survival of this traditional character of pre-British India

406 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA to-day

may still be traced in the Indian States, where the Simon
Report had occasion to refer to “ the comparative absence of
communal strife in the Indian States to-day". Where
communal strife has since been reported from Indian States in
certain cases, as in Kashmir in 1931-32, this has commonly
been a misdescription of an entirely different struggle un¬
connected with communal questions; thus in Kashmir the
issue was that of a popular rising of a four-fifths Moslem
population against a ruler who happened to be Hindu; this
was misreported as a communal rising, although the British
Press was compelled to admit the “ paradoxical position ” of
“ a ‘ communal rebellion ’ in which not a single Hindu has
been killed ” ( Daily Telegraph, February 8, 1932). In fact,
however, as the popular movement begins to extend and
grow in strength in the Indian States, the familiar methods of
reactionary division of the people have begun to show them¬
selves also in the Indian States.

The Simon Report, as we have seen, in dealing with the
Hindu-Moslem antagonism, had to refer to two peculiar facts :
first, its predominance in directly ruled British territory and
comparative absence in the Indian States, although the inter¬
mingling of populations occurs equally in both, and the bound¬
aries between the two are purely administrative ; second, to the
fact that in British territory it has grown in the recent period
and that “ in British India a generation ago . . . communal
tension as a threat to civil peace was at a minimum Communal
strife is thus a special product of British rule, and, in particular, of the
latest period of British rule, or of the declining imperialist ascendancy.

The suggestion that British rule holds the primary responsi¬
bility (which is not to say that there are not also other
responsibilities, as we shall see) for promoting communal strife
in India commonly arouses shocked indignation in official
quarters. Yet the facts are inescapable, alike in the testimony
of witnesses and in the historical record. The shocked
indignation is no argument ; for imperialism is far from being
Caesar’s wife ; and the records of imperialist duplicity are far
too abundant for world opinion to be convinced by sancti¬
monious posing in denial of obvious facts.

In the earlier period the principle of “ Divide and Rule ”
used to be more openly proclaimed than in the more careful
later days. As far back as 182 1, a British officer writing under

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA

407

the name of “ Carnaticus ” in the Asiatic Review of May,
1821, was declaring that “ Divide el impera should be the motto of
our Indian administration, whether political, civil or military”.
Lieutenant-Colonel Coke, Commandant of Moradabad, laid
down the principle in the middle of the nineteenth century :

“ Our endeavour should be to uphold in full force the (for
us fortunate) separation which exists between the different
religions and faces, not to endeavour to amalgamate them.
Divide et impera should be the principle of Indian govern¬
ment.” 1

In 1888, Sir John Strachey, leading authority on India, wrote:

“ The truth plainly is that the existence side by side of
these hostile creeds is one of the strong points in our political
position in India.” 2

(Sir John Strachey, “ India ”, 1888, p. 255.)

Gandhi has related how Hume, the joint founder of the
Congress, frankly confessed to him that the British Government
was “ sustained by the policy of Divide and Rule ” (quoted in
J. T. Sunderland’s “ India in Bondage ”, p. 232).

In igio J. Ramsay MacDonald wrote with reference to the
foundation of the Moslem League :

“ The All-India Moslem League was formed on December
30, 1906. The political successes which have rewarded the

1 Quoted in B. D. Basu, “ Consolidation of the Christian Power in
India ”, p. 74.

* In a subsequent edition of his book Sir John Strachey endeavoured to
revise this too plain statement, but with indifferent success. The new
version declared :

“ Nothing could be more opposed to the policy and universal practice
of our Government in India than the old maxim of divide and rule ; the
maintenance of peace among all classes has always been recognised as
one of the most essential duties of our ‘ belligerent civilisation but
this need not blind us to the fact that the existence side by side of these
hostile elements is one of the strong points in our political position in
India. The better classes of Mohammedans are a source to us of strength
and not of weakness. They constitute a comparatively small but energetic
minority of the population, whose political interests are identical with
ours, and who, under no conceivable circumstances, would prefer Hindu
dominion to our own.” (Sir John Strachey, “ India”, 1894, p. 241.)

The comparison of these two versions — “ the plain truth ” and the diplo¬
matic correction — is instructive for the growth of imperialist apologetics.
No less instructive is the fact that, behind the slightly more diplomatic
form and patently hypocritical expression, the policy remains unchanged.

408 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA to-day

efforts of the League . . . have been so signal as to give
support to a suspicion that sinister influences have been at
work, that the Mohammedan leaders were inspired by cer¬
tain Anglo-Indian officials, and that these officials pulled
wires at Simla and in London and of malice aforethought
sowed discord between the Hindu and the Mohammedan
communities by showing the Mohammedans special favour.”

(J. R. MacDonald, “ The Awakening of India ”, 1910,
pp. 283-4.)

Subsequent evidence has become available which has more
than confirmed the “ suspicion ”.

In 1926 Lord Olivier, after he had held office as Secretary
■of State for India, and had had access to all the records, wrote
in a letter to The Times :

“ No one with a close acquaintance with Indian affairs
will be prepared to deny that on the whole there is a pre¬
dominant bias in British officialism in India in favour of the
Moslem community, partly on the ground of closer sym¬
pathy, but more largely as a makeweight against Hindu
nationalism.”

(Lord Olivier, letter in The Times, July 10, 1926.)

The evidence for the official policy is thus based on very
authoritative statements of leading official representatives.

It is in the modern period, however, that this general policy
has been turned into an administrative system. Parallel with
the advance of the national struggle and the successive stages
of constitutional reforms has gone the process of promoting
communal divisions through the peculiar electoral system
adopted in connection with the reforms. This new departure
was initiated in 1906 — that is, exactly at the time of the first
wave of national unrest and advance.

Already as far back as 1890 a Moslem group under the
leadership of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, close to the Government,
had made proposals for special privileges and places for Mos¬
lems. The project was, however, opposed by responsible
Moslem opinion ; the Moslem Herald condemned it as some¬
thing sure to “ poison the social life of districts and villages and
make a hell of India ”. Nothing more was heard of the
project at the time.

In 1906, however, the British Government, in face of the

THE DARK FORGES IN INDIA 409

first widespread popular national movement in India, took the
responsibility of inaugurating a policy which was indeed
destined to “ poison th6 social life of districts and villages and
make a hell of India A Moslem deputation presented
themselves to the Viceroy and demanded separate and privi¬
leged representation in any electoral system that might be set
up. The Viceroy, Lord Minto, immediately announced his
acceptance of the demand :

“ You justly claim that your position should be estimated,
not merely on your numerical strength, but in respect to the
political importance of your community and the service that
it has rendered to the Empire. I am entirely in accord
with you.”

(Lord Minto, speech to Moslem deputation in 1906;

“ Life of Lord Minto ”, by John Buchan, 1925, p. 244.)
It was subsequently revealed by the Moslem leader, Mohamed
Ali, in the course of his Presidential Address to the 1923
National Congress that this Moslem deputation was “ a com¬
mand performance ”, arranged by the Government. That
the scheme originated with the Government authorities was
indicated by Lord Morley’s letter to Lord Minto at the end
of 1906:

“ I won’t follow you again into our Mahometan dispute.
Only I respectfully remind you once more that it -was your
early speech about their extra claims that first started the
M. (Moslem) hare.”

(Lord Morley, letter to Lord Minto, December 6, 1909 :

Morley, “ Recollections ”, Vol. II, p. 325.)

In this way the system of communal electorates and repre¬
sentation was inaugurated, striking at the roots of any demo¬
cratic electoral system. To imagine a parallel it would be
necessary to imagine that in Northern Ireland Catholics and
Protestants should be placed on separate electoral registers and
given separate representation, so that the members returned
should be members, not even with any formal obligation to
the electorate as a whole, but members for the Catholics and
members for the Protestants. It would be difficult to imagine
a device more calculated to promote separatist communal
organisation and antagonism. And, indeed, the organisation
of the separate Moslem League dates from December, 1906.

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

410

The plea has be?n put forward that such separate electorates
and representation were indispensable in order to prevent the
Moslems being swamped by the Hindu majority. The falsity
of this plea was sufficiently shown in the local government
elections in the same period, where these were still conducted
on the old basis of joint electorates. Thus in the United
Provinces in 1910 the joint electorates, with the Moslems
forming but one-seventh part of the population, returned 189
Moslems and 445 Hindus to the District Boards, and 310
Moslems and 562 Hindus to the Municipalities.

The purpose of driving a wedge between the two communi¬
ties was most sharply shown, not only by the establishment of
separate electorates and representation, but by giving specially
privileged representation to the Moslems. A most elaborate
system of weighting was devised. Thus, to become an elector
under the Morley-Minto Reforms, the Moslem had to pay
income tax on an income of 3,000 rupees a year, the non-
Moslem on an income of 300,000 rupees; or the Moslem
graduate was required to have three years’ standing, the non-
Moslem to have thirty years’ standing. The volume of repre¬
sentation showed a similar method of weighting. By this
means it was hoped to secure the support of a privileged
minority, and to turn the anger of the majority against the
privileged minority, instead of against the Government.

This system has been successively extended and elaborated
in the subsequent constitutional schemes, and reaches a climax
in the present Constitution. In the most modern stage of the
1935 Act separate representation is provided, not only for
the Moslems, but for the Sikhs, the Anglo-Indians, the Indian
Christians,1 and the Depressed Classes, as well as for Euro-

1 It is worth noting that the Indian Christian leaders have strongly
protested against the system of separate electorates which has been imposed
on them by the Government for its own purposes and not to meet their
wishes. Thus the Presidential Address of the All-India Christian Con¬
ference in 1938 declared :

“ My greatest objection to separate electorates is that it prevents us
from coming into close contact with other communities. Under the
guidance of our old leaders, some of whom have left us, we as a com¬
munity have always opposed special electorates which were forced on
us against our wishes. The existing system of communal electorate*
has turned India into a house divided against itself. My predecessor*
have pointed out year after year to what extent our community has been
a loser by the adoption of this system of separate electorates. I think it

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA

41 I

peans, Landholders, Commerce and Industry, etc. In the
Federal Assembly, out of 250 seats, 82, or one-third, are
reserved for the Moslems, representing under one-fourth of
the population, while the “ general seats ” for the overwhelm¬
ing majority of the population are cut down to 105 or two-
fifths, and out of these 19 are reserved for the “ scheduled
castes ” (depressed classes). Such is the apotheosis of elec¬
toral gerrymandering devised by imperialism.1

The effect of this electoral policy, expressing a corresponding
policy in the whole administrative field, has been to give the
sharpest possible stimulus to communal antagonism. “ The
coming of the Reforms, and the anticipation of what may
follow them, have given new point to Hindu-Moslem competi¬
tion ” (Simon Report, p. 29). The conflict directly provoked

desirable that we should go on appealing repeatedly to the leaders of all
communities to put forth strenuous and united efforts to remove this blot
on the fair name of the country at the very next opportunity.”

(Dr. H. C. Mukherjee, President of the All-India Christian Con¬
ference, Madras, December 1938.)

1 The plea that this glaring over-representation of the Moslem section,
out of any proportion to numbers, is actuated by concern for the protection
of a minority, is completely exposed by the division of seats in die Bengal
Legislative Assembly under the Act of 1935. In Bengal, under the present
frontiers, the Moslems constitute a majority. Yet the same weighted over-
representation is maintained. The Moslems, constituting 55 per cent, of
the population, receive 1 1 7 seats ; the Hindus constitute 43 per cent, of
the population, and the “ general ” seats, open to them, number 78 (of
which 30 are reserved for “ scheduled castes ”, i.e., the depressed classes,
leaving 48 open “ general ” seats). A division according to population
on the same basis as 78 for the Hindus, would have given 99 for the Moslems.
The pretence of weighted representation for the protection of a minority is
thus blown sky high.

This example also disposes of the hypocritical argument (faithfully set
out at length in the Simon Report, as in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report)
which seeks to justify the communal electorates as inspired by the recom¬
mendations of the Lucknow scheme of the Congress-Moslem League Pact
in 1916. The Lucknow Pact made the grave error of accepting as inevitable
the communal electoral division initiated by Lord Minto and Lord Morley ;
but it did at any rate put forward the proposal that the weighting should
be such as to favour whichever section was in a minority, so that in provinces
where the Moslems were a minority, they would receive a slight over-
representation, and where, as in Bengal, they were a majority, they would
receive a slight under-representation. The imperialist authorities, how¬
ever, while professing to draw their inspiration from the Lucknow Pact,
in fact gave the over-representation to the Moslems in every case,
independently of whether they were a minority or a majority, and by so
doinij revealed that their real purpose had nothing to do with the protection
of minorities, but was purely racial, to set one section of the population
against the other by arbitrary favouritism, and so to divide the people.

412

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

by the Government over representation, governmental favours
and privileges, administrative posts and positions, reaching
down to the most subordinate employment, is only the starting-
point directly affecting the middle-class and lower middle-class
elements, rather than the masses of either community, who in
normal times live peaceably together. But from the reper¬
cussion of this policy follows that these middle-class elements
who are caught by the bait naturally seek to organise their
separatist mass following on this basis in order to strengthen
their positions. Thus the overt governmental policy becomes
only the starting-point for the creation of a general situation
of communal tension.

In this way separatist communal organisations have been
formed in India, not numerically strong or important, nor
with any leadership of standing, but containing reactionary
elements, and encouraged to pursue a reactionary policy hos¬
tile to the national movement. The Moslem League was
founded at the end of 1906 under governmental inspiration,
as described. The strength of the national movement was
such, however, that by 1913 the Moslem League entered into
negotiations for unity with the National Congress, and by the
end of 1916 this unity was sealed in the Congress-League
scheme. This unity was a source of deep mortification to the
Government, which, foiled for the moment in its aims of
Hindu-Moslem antagonism, in February, 1917, fostered the
Non-Brahmin Movement (originating in Madras, given
electoral recognition in the Constitution of 1919, and decisively
beaten in the 1937 elections). During the post-war national
wave enthusiastic crowds demonstrated in the streets hailing
Hindu-Moslem Unity. The official government report for
“ India in 1919 ” was compelled to record the “ unprecedented
fraternisation between the Hindus and the Moslems . . . ex¬
traordinary scenes of fraternisation ”. This great advance,
however, received a check through the collapse of the non-
co-operation movement and the Khilafat agitation ; the deeper
mass unity had not been reflected in the organised leadership,
which had come together, but still on a partially communal
basis. The Moslem League drifted away again from the Con¬
gress and returned to the old separatist tendencies. Favoured
and encouraged by the Government, the reactionary leader¬
ship of the Moslem League has played a more and more dis-

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA

413

ruptive role, to block any democratic advance and inflame
antagonisms against the National Congress. It should be
remembered, however, that the Moslem League represents
only a tiny minority of the Moslems in India (321,772 votes
out of the total 7,319,445 Moslem votes at the last elections),
and that there is a strong left opposition within it which seeks
unity with the National Movement.

In opposition to the Moslem League there also developed
into a certain prominence the Hindu Mahasabha (first organ¬
ised on an All-India basis, under the presidency of Lajpat
Rai, in 1925), devoted to pressing Hindu claims, and pursuing
an equally reactionary policy. This body has distinguished
itself as the only body supporting the imperialist federal
constitution, when even the Indian Liberals (Moderates)
opposed it. Needless to say, the two organisations play
into each other’s hands, to the benefit of the British Govern¬
ment.

These so-called “ communal organisations ” are in reality
small ultra-reactionary groups, dominated by large landlord
and banker interests, playing for the support of the British
Government against the popular movement, and pursuing an
in practice united reactionary policy on all social and economic
issues. “ Hindu and Moslem communalism ”, as Jawaharlal
Nehru has justly observed, is “ in neither case even
bona fide communalism, but political and social reaction
hiding behind the communal mask ” (“ Autobiography ”,
P- 459)-

In the most recent period the activities of these communal
organisations have been greatly increased. The demand has
been developed for the State separation of the Moslems by
the establishment of a Confederation of Moslem States to
cover four main areas — a North-western Group, a North¬
eastern Group, a Delhi-Lucknow Group, and a Deccan Group,
including part of Hyderabad State. In 1940 the Moslem
League officially adopted the demand for the division of India
into autonomous States with a separate Moslem Federation.
The aims here to carry still further the dividing and splitting of
India are obvious. The Khaksar Movement, which organises
Moslems in semi-military formations and which was initiated
by a former official of the North-west Frontier Government,
was stated in the United Provinces Legislative Assembly in

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

4!4

April, 1939, to claim 400,000 members and 4,000 centres
throughout India. While these claims are undoubtedly ex¬
aggerated, there is no room for indifference to the dangerous
work which is being carried on by the most reactionary
elements in India, with official encouragement, to create
conditions of disturbance and disorganise the national
democratic movement.

The national movement has in general conducted an active
and progressive fight against communal separatism and for
national unity. The Declaration of Rights of the National
Congress represents the most enlightened and consistent demo¬
cratic affirmation of universal rights of equal citizenship,
irrespective of caste, creed or sex, together with provision for
full freedom of conscience and protection of cultural rights of
minorities. The best progressive Moslems are in the National
Congress ; and leaders of the type of Dr. Ansari, who has pur¬
sued the strongest fight against all communalism and for com¬
plete unity, or Abdul Ghaffar Khan of the North-west Frontier
Red Shirts, have played a prominent part in the national
movement.

Nevertheless, the difficulties of the political situation created
by the Government’s policy have led in the past to concessions
and partial compromises on the part of the National Congress.
The Lucknow Pact of Hindu-Moslem Unity in 1916 was
based on acceptance of separate communal representation,
and even worked out an elaborate detailed scheme for the
division of seats (a fact which was triumphantly utilised by
the Montagu-Chelmsford Report and again at great length
by the Simon Report). The same was the case with the
Nehru Constitution of 1928.

The modern policy of the Congress in relation to the Com¬
munal Award under the new Constitution has been expressed
most recently in the resolution of the All-India Congress Com¬
mittee in October, 1937, endorsed by the Haripura Congress
in 1938:

“ The position of the Congress in regard to the Com¬
munal Decision has been repeatedly made clear in Congress
resolutions and finally in the Election Manifesto issued last
year. The Congress is opposed to this decision, as it is anti¬
national, anti-democratic and is a barrier to Indian freedom
and the development of Indian unity. Nevertheless the

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA 415

Congress has declared that a change in or supersession of
the Communal Decision should only be brought about by
the mutual agreement of the parties concerned. The Con¬
gress has always welcomed and is prepared to take advantage
of any opportunity to bring about such a change by mutual
agreement.”

It will be seen that this resolution, while condemning the Com¬
munal Decision, makes the active demand for its change or
supersession dependent on the agreement of communal
representatives.

The policy of compromise in this thorny question has been
dictated by tactical expediency, in order not to give any handle
to prejudice or accusations of neglect of the interests of
minorities, and not to any acceptance in principle. Its justi¬
fication has been a matter of controversy. The conception
of unity on the basis of a bargain between the two elements,
instead of on the basis of the elimination of the artificial dis¬
tinctions, inevitably raises the danger of playing into the hands
of separatist conceptions, instead of striking at their root. The
mass response to the slogan of unity in every great wave of the
national movement proves that a bold policy, closer to the
masses, rather than to the privileged upper- and middle-class
competitors, is the only policy to win success in eliminating
this sore from Indian life.

In the elections of 1937 the Congress contested only 58 of
the 482 Moslem seats, and won 26 (15 in the North-west
Frontier Province, only 11 in all the rest of the country).
Dr. Z. A. Ahmad, of the Economic and Political Department
of the National Congress, has sharply criticised the lack of
any serious attempt to win the Moslem masses, outside the
North-west Frontier Province :

“ The Congress Parliamentary Boards displayed a highly
deplorable vacillation and lack of self-confidence in putting
up Congress candidates for Moslem constituencies. The
question of contesting Moslem seats was never considered
seriously by the Parliamentary Boards, and the field was
left entirely open to communal and reactionary individuals
and organisations. ... It was virtually decided by the
Congress not to approach the Moslem masses directly except
in the North West Frontier Province. This was nothing

416 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

short of a betrayal of those millions of Moslems — peasants,
workers, poor artisans and shopkeepers, etc. — who could
have been easily won over by the Congress provided a direct
appeal was made to their economic interests which are
identical with those of the Hindu masses.

“ The defeatist policy of Congress leadership threw the
Moslem masses entirely into the arms of the reactionaries.”
(Dr. Z. A. Ahmad, “ Some Lessons of the Elections ”,
in the Congress Socialist , March 30, 1937.)

He further notes that “ in many rural areas where Moslem
Congress candidates were not set up, hundreds and thousands
of poor Moslems participated in the election campaign in sup¬
port of the non-Moslem Congress candidate ”■ — thus showing
what could have been achieved had the Moslem constituencies
been contested.

While the main responsibility for the promotion and sharpen¬
ing of communal antagonism rests with the imperialist Govern¬
ment, it must be recognised that a serious share of responsibility
has to be placed at the door of the dominant leadership of the
national movement. We have already seen how, in the first
great wave of national awakening in the pre-war years, the
leaders of the militant national movement, Tilak, Aurobindo
Ghose and others, sought to build on a basis of Hindu religion
for their agitation and to identify the national awakening with
a revival of Hinduism. By this act they cut off the Moslem
masses from the national movement, and opened the way to
the Government’s astute counter-move with the formation of
the Moslem League in 1906.

Nor was this disastrous error confined to the Nationalists
or so-called “ Extremists ” of the older period. It has
continued in the modern period, and is most prominent in
the entire agitation and propaganda of Gandhi. In all
Gandhi’s propaganda the preaching of Hinduism and his
religious conceptions and the preaching of the general political
aims are inextricably mixed . At the very height of the national
non-co-operation movement of 1920-22 when Gandhi stood
as the leader of the united national movement and had
the responsibility to make his every utterance as the leader of
a united movement, he was publicly proclaiming himself “ a
Sanatanist Hindu ” (a kind of extremist, as it were “ ultra¬
montane ” Hindu) :

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA 417

“ I call myself a Sanatani Hindu, because

(1) I believe in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the

Puranas and all that goes by the name Hindu
scriptures, and therefore in avataras and rebirth.

(2) I believe in the Varnashrama Dharma, in a sense

in my opinion strictly Vedic, but not in its present
popular and crude sense.

(3) I believe in the protection of the cow in its much

larger sense than the popular.

(4) I do not disbelieve in idol-worship.”

(Gandhi in Young India, October 12, 1921.)

In order to understand what the term “ Sanatanist ” conveys
to a wider public, it is sufficient to recall Nehru’s description :

“ The Hindu Mahasabha ... is left far behind in this
backward-moving race by the Sanatanists, who combine
religious obscurantism of an extreme type with fervent, or
at any rate loudly expressed loyalty to British rule.”

(Jawaharlal Nehru, “ Autobiography ”, p. 382.)

Even when appealing for Hindu-Moslem unity, Gandhi has
made the appeal, not as a national leader appealing to both
sections, but as a Hindu leader : the Hindus are “ we ” ; the
Moslems are “ they ” :

“ We shall have to go in for tapasya, for self-purification, if
we want to win the hearts of Mussulmans.”

(Gandhi, in Young India, September, 1924.)

At any moment throughout the modern national struggle
Gandhi could pass from Congress politics to a Hindu reform
movement (as in the crisis of the struggle in 1932-33) and vice
versa.

Thus the chosen leader of the National Congress, its principal
representative in the public eye, has appeared throughout
as the active leader of Hinduism and of Hindu revival. Is it
any wonder that under these conditions (and while the prin¬
cipal crime in this respect has been that of Gandhi, the same
methods have been characteristic of a host of lesser lights in
the Congress camp, especially those belonging to the Gandhist
inspiration and tendency), with such an officially recognised
leadership and propaganda, the National Congress should be
widely stigmatised, not only by enemy critics, but even by a

418 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA to-day

considerable body of general opinion, as “ a Hindu move¬
ment ” ? It speaks much for their national devotion that a
select body of Moslem leaders have faithfully stood in with
the Congress under these conditions. But these methods will
never win a mass Moslem following.

The British Government, in its exploitation of communal
divisions, has undoubtedly used an infamous weapon against
the people’s movement. But Tilakism and Gandhism have
helped to place that weapon in its hands.

It is evident that the national movement, if it is to represent
a united nation, must in its official platform and propaganda
be rigidly undenominational — i.e., secular. The religion of
its representatives and spokesmen must be their private affair ;
it has no place in their public utterances. “ Keep Religion
out of Politics ! ” should be the slogan of the Congress. The
political, social and economic programme of the national
movement should and can unite the masses of the Indian
people above, across and apart from religious affiliations.
Such a strengthened, secularised, modernised, united demo¬
cratic movement can be the strongest force at the present stage
to counter communal agitation.

For there can be no doubt that the mass of poorer Moslems
(and the majority are very poor), as well as the widest body of
progressive Moslems, especially the younger Moslems, are by
no means represented by the communal leadership which
claims to speak for them, and are ready to respond to the
appeal of a progressive democratic leadership and modern
programme, but are still hesitant and even alienated from the
National Congress, as long as it retains the Gandhist flavour
of Hindu revivalism and metaphysics. Nehru has noted :

“ I think that the Moslem rank and file has more poten¬
tiality in it, perhaps because of a certain freedom in social
relations, than the Hindu masses, and is likely to go ahead
faster in a socialist direction, once it gets moving.”

(Jawaharlal Nehru, “ Autobiography ”, p. 577.)

Very interesting in this connection is the testimony of the
Turkish woman journalist, Halide Edib, who in 1935 travelled
in India and, herself a Moslem, lived and discussed with
Indian Moslems representing a wide range of outlooks. Her
book, “ Inside India ”, gives a picture of a very considerably

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA 419

awakening now developing among Moslems, especially among
the Moslem youth, with a strong attraction to the modernising
tendencies represented by Turkey and to democratic and social¬
ist ideals. Among the Congress leadership it was the modern
democratic non-religious socialist type of outlook represented
by Jawaharlal Nehru which attracted the Moslem youth.

“ The writer in her talks found out that the Moslem youth
were more inclined to Jawaharlal Nehru, the Socialist leader,
than to any other in the political field. Jawaharlal Nehru’s
hold over the Moslem youth, since he has been tested as a
leader, has increased, according to the latest news. And it
is evident that Socialism has gained ground among the
youth and the student organisations. There are a large
number of young Moslems in the Congress Party ; the Punjab
Socialist Party consists mostly of Moslems, and the Frontier
Socialist Party has the largest membership in all India.”

(Halide Edib, “ Inside India ”, 1937, pp. 339 40.)

At the present time, when imperialism is hard pressed under
conditions of war, the question of communal divisions is
brought more sharply than ever to the forefront as the main
hope for holding back democratic advance and national
freedom. Solemn negotiations are conducted with the
Moslem League as the equal of the National Congress. The
views of the Moslem League are respectfully printed in Govern¬
ment White Papers. The Viceroy declared in his speech of
January, 1940, that “ the failure to reach agreement between
the political parties of India ” was “the only stumbling-block”
to prevent a rapid advance to Dominion Status. These are the
old familiar tactics of the Round Table Conferences ef a decade
ago, when, in place of elected delegates, the “ representatives ”
were handpicked by the British Government from the most
sectarian elements, guaranteed to be at discord, and the discord
was then declared to be a reason for refusing self-government.

The hypocrisy of this manoeuvre is evident. The National
Congress at the last election proved its representative character
by winning, despite all the restrictions of the weighted electoral
system, an absolute majority of votes far more decisive than
the “ National ” Government has ever won in Britain. But
this mandate is not accepted by the British Government as
the expression of the united will of the Indian people. The

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

420

proposal of the Congress for the election of a Constituent
Assembly based on universal suffrage, to express the demo¬
cratic will of the Indian people is equally rejected. Instead,
the demand is presented that the national movement must
first reach agreement with the splinters, whose existence has
been promoted by imperialism in order to oppose the national
movement, before the people can be declared to be united.
The former Congress member, Mr. Jinnah (who left the
Congress in 1920, not at all on communal grounds, but solely
because he was opposed to its militant policy), is exalted by
the Viceroy to negotiate on an equality with the representatives
of the national movement.

The communal issue is grossly misrepresented in the official
Press, and has given rise to genuine misconceptions on the part
of progressive and sympathetic elements in Britain, largely
because the impression has been spread that the Moslem
League may be regarded as representing the 80 million Moslems
in India. The claim is fictitious and has only to be tested by
the evidence to be exploded. Under the existing constitution
480 seats are reserved for Moslems out of a total of 1581 in all
the eleven Provincial Legislative Assemblies in British India.
Out of these 480 seats the Moslem League has been able to
secure only 104 seats representing 4-6 per cent, of the total
Moslem votes (total Moslem votes, 7,319,445; Moslem
League votes, 321,772). In four of the Provinces (Sind,
Punjab, North-west Frontier and Bihar) the Moslem League
was not able to get one representative elected. The North¬
west Frontier Province, with an overwhelming Moslem
majority of the population, is a Congress stronghold, and had
a Congress Government. In Sind, where also Moslems are
in a majority, there was a Congress-Coalition Government.
In two Provinces Moslem Prime Ministers formed govern¬
ments with reactionary landlord and British support. They
subsequently joined the Moslem League as individuals, and
the Cabinets contained Hindus, Europeans, Sikhs and others.
The bond that held them together was not religion but land¬
lordism and political reaction.

Of 80 million Moslems in India, 20 per cent, are Shias ; the
Shias have their own organisation and have also disowned the
Moslem League and support the Congress. The Momins,
who number about 45 millions in India, have their All-India

THE DARK FORCES IN INDIA 42 1

Momin Conference, which repudiates the claim of the League
to represent the Moslems and supports the demand for inde¬
pendence and a Constituent Assembly. Nor can the League
lay claim to undivided religious backing; for the Jamiat-ul-
Ulema, which has considerable prestige and importance, sup¬
ports the Congress. The Congress itself claims a much larger
Moslem membership than does the entire Moslem League.

The Hindus and Moslem masses in India have not and
cannot have different objectives. There is no such thing as a
separate Moslem poverty and servitude and a Hindu poverty
and servitude, but an Indian poverty and servitude. In the
hundreds of thousands of Indian villages, the overwhelming
majority of Hindus and Moslems live under the same burdens
of landlordism, the same exactions of moneylenders, under
the same grinding imperialism, and the attempt to promote
divisions between them is only the attempt to protect this
system of exploitation.

Behind the communal antagonisms, which have been
promoted to protect the system of exploitation and imperialist
rule, lie social and economic questions. This is obvious in
the case of the middle-class communalists competing for
positions and jobs. It is no less true where communal
difficulties reach the masses. In Bengal and the Punjab the
Hindus include the richer landlord, trading and money-
lending interests; the Moslems are more often the poorer
peasants and debtors. In other cases big Moslem landlords
will be found among Hindu peasants. Again and again what
is reported as a “ communal ” struggle or rising conceals a
struggle of Moslem peasants against Hindu landlords, Moslem
debtors against Hindu money-lenders, or Hindu workers
against imported Pathan strike-breakers. ’ No less significant
is the sinister appearance of communal riots (fomented by
unknown hands), followed by police firing and deaths, in any
industrial centre where the workers have achieved an ad¬
vance, as in Bombay in 1929 after the great strike movement,
or in Cawnpore in 1939 after the great strike victory of 1938.
The weapon of reaction, and its social economic purpose to
break the solidarity of the workers, is visible.1

1 The connivance of the official authorities in relation to communal
riots was noted by the Cawnpore Riots Enquiry Committee in 1931 :

“ Every class of witness . . . agreed in this one respect that the police

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

422

No less the solution of the communal question lies along the
lines of social and economic advance. In the trade unions
and the peasants’ unions Hindus and Moslems unite without
distinction or difference (and without feeling the need of
separate electorates) . The common bonds of class solidarity,
of common social and economic needs, shatter the artificial
barriers of communal, as of caste divisions. Herein lies the
positive path of advance to the solution of the communal
question. Communal antagonisms will not be defeated by the
abstract preaching of Hindu-Moslem unity, nor by bargains
between the leaders. They can only be decisively overcome
by the advance of the mass movement on the basis of the
interests of the masses, and by the advance of the general
democratic movement.

The attempted artificial division of the single Indian people
into two “ nations ” can never be, and will never be accepted
by the national movement. The basic policy of the national
movement, as already laid down in the Declaration of Rights
adopted by the National Congress in 1931, can only be built
on the foundation of equal democratic citizenship, without
distinction of caste, creed or sex, with cultural protection for
all minorities, and with freedom of conscience.

Against the fomenters of communal divisions, against the
Government’s exploitation of communal divisions and religi¬
ous antagonisms, leading to riots and bloodshed for the benefit
of reaction and foreign rule, against the familiar pogrom
methods of the black forces, all that is sound and healthy in
the Indian people needs to unite. Indian Nationalism has
the proud responsibility to hold up the standard of the unity

showed indifference and inactivity in dealing with various incidents in
the riot. These witnesses include European business men, Moslems
and Hindus of all shades of opinion, military officers, the Secretary of
the Upper India Chamber of Commerce, representatives of the Indian
Christian Community, and even Indian officials. It is impossible to
ignore such unanimity of evidence. . . . There is no doubt in our mind
that during the first three days of the riot the Police did not show that
activity in the discharge of their duty which was expected of them. . . .
A number of witnesses have cited instances of serious crimes being com¬
mitted within view of the police without their active interest being
aroused. . . . We are told by a number of witnesses and the District
Magistrate also has said so in his evidence, that complaints about the
indifference and inactivity of the police were made at the time. It is to
be regretted that no serious notice was taken of these complaints.”

(Cawnpore Riots Report, 1931, p. 39.)

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 423

of the Indian people, of democratic rights and liberties, and of
elementary human decency and civilised conditions. Of the
outcome of this struggle there can be no doubt. The defeat
of the black forces is bound up with the victory of the
national democratic liberation of India. The Indian national
movement can justly take up the challenge of the dying
imperialist regime’s bloodstained alliance with rabid com¬
munal forces, and, with the answering slogan of “ Keep
Religion Out of Politics ! ”, can concentrate on the social,
economic and political issues which unite the masses of the
people on the basis of their common interests along the path of
advance to the final overcoming of the causes of division.
No issue so sharply reveals the character of the struggle
between nationalism and- imperialism in India as a struggle
between the forces of advance of human culture and the forces
of barbarism and decay.

Chapter XV: THE BATTLEGROUND

OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION

“ To propose that Great Britain should voluntarily give up all authority
over her colonics, and leave them to elect their own magistrates, to enact
their own laws and to make peace and war as they might think proper,
would be to propose such a measure as never has and never will be adopted
by any nation in the world. No nation ever voluntarily gave up the
dominion of any Province.” — Adam Smith, “ Wealth of Nations ”, 1 776,
Part IV, chapter vii.

In a publication whose interest grows with the years — the
“Reformers’ Year Book” for 1906 — a page is devoted to
Russia in 1905. Of the thirty lines in which the happenings of
that eventful year are recorded, twenty-three lines are devoted
to the Duma, its foundation, composition, electoral basis,
powers and prospects. There is a brief reference to Father
Gapon. For the rest, we are told that “ it has not been a year
for a vigorous development of labour organisations, owing to
the national crisis and excessive police brutality. There has
been riot and revolt in every part of Russia.” Such were the
proportions of the Russian Revolution of 1905 as they appeared
to contemporary “ enlightened ” Western opinion.

424 the BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

So to-day the “ Indian question ” during the past two
decades since the war, to judge from nine-tenths of the
voluminous literature which has poured out upon the subject
in British discussion, is mainly a question of the successive
“ constitutions ” handed out at intervals by imperialism to the
Indian people. In the background, as a kind of setting to the
constitutional question, appears a vague fringe of “ unrest ”
and undesirable manifestations by the people under the
influence of “ extremists ”, with some references to the
enigmatic personality of Mr. Gandhi. All the deeper social
and political issues of the gathering Indian Revolution are
buried in an arid desert of constitutional pedantries, whose un¬
utterable tedium justly revolts the British political public and
effectually extinguishes their interest in Indian affairs. The
burning realities of one-fifth of the human race in movement
are dimly seen through the smoke-glass of an obviously make-
believe “ new Constitution ” as the centre and focus.

Lassalle once said that the real constitution is the actual
relations of power in a given society. Nowhere is this more
clearly demonstrated than over the question of the Indian
“ Constitution ”.

The various “ Constitutions ” or constitutional projects of
imperialism for India are not solutions, or even attempted
solutions, of the Indian problem. They are simply forms of
the battle, successive stages and arenas of the battle between
imperialism and nationalism. They are not even the main
stage of the battle. The reality is the battle ; the ghost is the
Constitution.

In the recent period the question of the Federal Constitution
has been in the forefront. But the real question does not lie in
the particular details of the Federal Constitution. The real
issue is the demand of the Indian people for full self-govern¬
ment and national independence. This is the demand which
is expressed in the present opposition of the National Congress
to the Federal Constitution laid down in the Act of 1935.

1. Imperialism and Self-Government

The suggestion is sometimes put forward in official apologetic
quarters to-day that the real purpose of British rule in India has
been to train the Indian people for self-government.

This was not the view of the early British rulers of India.

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 425

Until the strength of the national movement for liberation
forced the issue of self-government into the political arena, any
possibility of such a development was rejected by British ruling
opinion with contempt.

Not only Conservative opinion, but Liberal opinion right
through the classic period of British supremacy concurred in
this view. Macaulay declared in 1833 :

“ In India you cannot have representative institutions. Of
all the innumerable speculators who have offered their
suggestions on Indian politics not a single one, as far as I
know, however democratical his opinion, has ever main¬
tained the possibility of giving at the present time such
institutions to India.”

(T. B. Macaulay, speech in the House of Commons,
July 10, 1833.)

John Stuart Mill, the accredited prophet of philosophic
liberalism and champion of representative institutions, was no
less emphatic in denying such institutions to India. In the
same speech Macaulay quoted Mill’s view :

“ He (Mill) has written strongly — far too strongly, I think
— in favour of pore democracy. . . . But when he was
asked before the Committee of last year whether he thought
representative government practicable in India, his answer
was : ‘ Utterly out of the question ! ’ ” (Ibid.)

A dialogue between Gladstone and Bright illustrates the
bankruptcy of nineteenth-century liberalism before the
problem of India :

“ I have had a very long conversation with Bright this
evening on India. . . . He admits the difficulty of govern¬
ing a people by a people — i.e., India by a pure Parliamentary
Government.”

(Gladstone, letter to Sir James Graham, April 23, 1858 :
“ Life and Letters of Sir James Graham ”, Vol. II,
p. 340.)

But there is no trace that to either of these leaders of nineteenth-
century liberalism (and Bright performed important services
with his agitation against misgovernment in India) the possi¬
bility of the solution occurred that the Indian people might
govern themselves.

o 2

426 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

The standpoint of imperialism on the eve of the war was
expressed in emphatic terms by Lord Cromer :

“ To speak of self-government for India under conditions
such as these is as if we were to advocate self-government for
a united Europe. . . . The idea is not only absurd; it is
not only impracticable. I would go further and say that to
entertain it would be a crime against civilisation, and
especially against the voiceless millions in India whose
interests are committed to our charge.”

(Lord Cromer, “ Ancient and Modern Imperialism ”,
1910, p. 123.)

No less definite was the expression of the Liberal Lord Morley
in the same period, who, while introducing the constitutional
reforms known as the Morley-Minto Reforms, was most
insistent that they should not be regarded as in any sense
preparing the way for parliamentary institutions :

“ If it could be said that this chapter of reforms led
directly or indirectly to the establishment of a parliamentary
system in India, I, for one, would have nothing at all to do
with it.”

(Lord Morley, speech in the House of Lords, December
17, 1908.)

Such was the consistent standpoint of imperialism in relation
to India up to 1917. If since 1917 a sudden change in
expression has appeared, and the “ crime against civilisation ”
has now become the formally proclaimed aim, it is evident that
this abrupt transformation in policy, or in professed policy, can
by no means be derived from the original intentions, but can
only be derived from the sharp impact of external events.

How far has a real change now taken place ?

Or how far is the apparent change in policy and outlook
since 1917 fundamentally a tactical adaptation to force of
circumstances, with the basic aim of continued British
supremacy still tenaciously held and by no means abandoned ?
This is the question which it is now important to examine.

2. PRE-1917 Reform Policy
Up to the war the proclaimed aim of imperialism was the
successively extended drawing of Indians into association in

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 427

the imperialist administrative machine. This aim, which is in¬
dispensable for the successful working of any imperialist
system (of the i J million in government service in India it is
practically impossible for more than a fraction to be English),
has been consistently proclaimed, and, with due caution to
maintain hold of all strategic positions of control, continuously
pursued for over a century. This aim should not be confused
with the aim of self-government, which is in reality its contrary,
and which up to 1917 was no less consistently repudiated.
Confusion between these two aims has often led to a misleading
picture of a supposed gradual advance towards the objective
of responsible government.

The Charter of 1833 laid down :

“ No Indian by reason only of his religion, place of birth,
descent, colour or any of them, shall be disabled from holding
any place, office or any employment under the said
Government.”

The Court of Directors issued their interpretation of this clause :

“ The Court conceives this section to mean that there shall
be no governing caste in British India ; that, whatever other
tests of qualification should be adopted, distinction of race or
religion should not be of that number.”

The Queen’s Proclamation of 1858, which has been commonly
presented as the starting point of a new policy, in reality only
amplified the above :

“ It is our will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of what¬
ever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to office
in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by
their education, ability and integrity duly to discharge.”

These pledges or promises to India of complete equality and
disappearance of distinctions between rulers and ruled were
not, of course, intended to be fulfilled in the broad sense in
which they appeared to be made. Hence the famous words of
Lord Lytton, Viceroy in 1876-80, in his “ confidential ” letter
to the Secretary of State, Lord Granbrook, about the policy of
the British Government in India as being one of “ breaking to
the heart the words of promise they have uttered to the ear ” :

“ We all know that these claims and expectations never
can or will be fulfilled. We had the choice between pro-

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

428

hibiting them and cheating them, and we have chosen the
least straightforward course. . . . This I am writing
confidentially, I do not hesitate to say that both the Govern¬
ment of England and of India appear to me up to the present
moment unable to answer satisfactorily the charge of having
taken every means in their power of breaking to the heart
the words of promise they have uttered to the ear.”

Lord Salisbury, in his downright fashion, characterised the
British pledges to India as “ political hypocrisy (What
Lord Salisbury would have had to say to the Baldwins, Lloyd
Georges, MacDonalds and Chamberlains of the present epoch
would be an interesting speculation.)

The real aim, expressed in misleadingly flamboyant form in
these pledges and proclamations of a bygone era (yet with their
lesson for to-day, when we have advanced a stage further in a
parallel process), was the gradual extension of a carefully
controlled subordinate association of Indians in the imperialist
administrative machinery, so as to have the support of a trained
stratum of upper-class and middle-class Indians to assist in
holding the masses in subjection.

In pursuance of this aim, alongside the cautious widening of
the number of posts of Indians in the civil service (but never in
the decisive positions), a series of reform measures were carried
from 1861 onwards.

In 1861 the Indian Councils Act provided for the addition of
six nominated non-official members to the Viceroy’s Legislative
Council ; and some of these nominated members were carefully
selected Indians. It is worth noting that, like every subsequent
reform measure, the “ reform ” was accompanied by a new
repressive weapon : the Viceroy was given the power to issue
Ordinances having for six months at any time the force of law
— a power freely used in the modern period.

In 1883-84 the Local Self-Government Acts introduced the
elective principle into municipal government, and established
Rural Boards and District Councils.

In 1892 the Indian Councils Act added a few indirectly
elected members (actually recommended for approval, not
formally elected, by the local government and other bodies) to
the Provincial Legislative Councils, and through them, at a
further stage of indirectness, to the Viceroy’s Legislative
Council.

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 429

In 1909 the Indian Councils Act, better known as the
Morley-Minto Reforms, introduced an elected majority into
the Provincial Legislative Councils (in part indirectly, and in
part directly elected), and an elected minority (indirectly
elected, except for the landowners’ seats and the Moslems’
seats) into the Viceroy’s Legislative Council. The functions of
these Councils remained severely restricted, with no control
over administration or finance; their legislation could be
vetoed, if disapproved ; the franchise was extremely narrow,
and to the existing multiplication of electing bodies was added
the system of separate Moslem electorates.

The Morley-Minto Reforms were the first reforms to be
carried in the midst of, and as a result of widespread national
agitation and demand for self-government, and with the
avowed political aim to defeat that agitation and, in Morley’s
phrase, “ rally the Moderates ”. The Reforms were first pro¬
jected in 1 go6, following the great upswing of the national move¬
ment in 1905, the boycott and Swadeshi campaign which was
launched in 1905, and the Russian Revolution of 1905, which
had shaken the other great oriental despotism of the Tsar. In
this situation these minute Reforms were presented with a great
beating of the drums as the beginning of a new era. In the dry
words of the subsequent Montagu-Chelmsford Report (which
was itself to repeat the same process on an extended scale) :
“ Excessive claims were made for them in the enthusiasm
of the moment. . . . These sanguine expectations were
shortlived.”

Lord Morley’s calculations to defeat the movement for self-
government by his Reforms were openly expressed. He
analysed the situation in the following instructive terms :

“ There are three classes of people whom we have to
consider in dealing with a scheme of this kind. There are
the Extremists who nurse fantastic dreams that some day
they will drive us out of India. . . . The second group
nourish no hopes of this sort, but hope for autonomy or self-
government of the colonial species and pattern. And then
the third section of this classification ask for no more than to
be admitted to co-operation in our administration.

“ I believe the effect of the Reforms has been, is being and
will be to draw the second class, who hope for colonial

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

430

autonomy, into the third class, who will be content with
being admitted to a fair and full co-operation.”

(Viscount Morley, speech in the House of Lords,
February 23, 1909.)

Thus “ co-operation in our administration ”, along the path of
constitutional reforms, was the chosen method of imperialism by which
it hoped to defeat the national aim of self-government.

There was no question at this time of presenting the Reforms
as “ a step to self-government ”. As we have seen, Lord
Morley made it perfectly plain that the Reforms were not to
be regarded as leading “ directly or indirectly to the establish¬
ment of a parliamentary system in India ”. Similarly Lord
Morley wrote to Lord Minto, accepting and emphasising the
latter’s claim that there was to be no question of any advance,
then or in the future, to responsible government in India :

“ Your Excellency’s disclaimer for your government of
being ‘ advocates of representative government for India in
the Western sense of the term ’ is not more than was to be
expected. Some of the most powerful advocates of the
representative system in Europe have learned and taught
from Indian experiences of their own that, in Your
Excellency’s words, 4 it could never be akin to the instincts
of the many races comprising the population of the Indian
Empire ’. . . . While repudiating the intention or desire
to attempt the transplantation of any European form of
representative government to Indian soil, what is sought by
Your Excellency in Council is to improve existing machinery,
or to find new, for 4 recognising the natural aspirations of
educated men to share in the government of their country ’.
I need not say that in this design you have the cordial
concurrence of His Majesty’s Government.

44 One main standard and test for all who have a share in
guiding Indian policy, whether at Whitehall or Calcutta, is
the effect of whatever new proposal may at any time be made
upon the strength and steadiness of the Paramount Power.”

(Lord Morley to Lord Minto, quoted Montagu-
Chelmsford Report, p. 64.)

Up to this point the policy of imperialism is clear and un¬
mistakable. There is no question of any advance to self-
government. The interests of the Paramount Power are decisive.

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 431

The purpose of constitutional reform is to enlist the support
of the upper-class minority in the interests of imperialism.

3. The Question of Dominion Status
Then came the war of 1914-18, the weakening of the
foundations of imperialism, the awakening of India, as of all
the colonial peoples, Hindu-Moslem unity and the Congress-
League scheme of 1916 for self-government, and the Russian
Revolution of March, 1917, opening the wave of popular
advance in all countries and launching the slogans of national
self-determination throughout the world.

On August 20, 1917, the British Government met this
situation with a new Declaration of Policy, which has since
been regarded as the keystone of modern imperialist constitu¬
tional policy. The essential passages of this Declaration ran :

“ The policy of His Majesty’s Government, with which the
Government of India are in complete accord, is that of
increasing the association of Indians in every branch of the
administration and the gradual development of self-govern¬
ing institutions with a view to the progressive realisation of
responsible government in India as an integral part of the
British Empire. They have decided that substantial steps
in this direction should be taken as soon as possible. . . .
Progress in this policy can only be achieved by successive
stages. The British Government and the Government of
India, on whom the responsibility lies for the welfare and
advancement of the Indian peoples, must be judges of the
time and measure of each advance, and they must be guided
by the co-operation received from those upon whom new
opportunities of service will thus be conferred and by the
extent to which it is found that confidence can be reposed in
their sense of responsibility.”

This Declaration is generally known as the Montagu Declar-
I ation, from the name of the Secretary of State, E. S. Montagu,
through whom it was issued. Its drafting was largely the work
of the veterans of Die-Hard British imperialism, Curzon and
Austen Chamberlain. Lord Curzon inserted in the document
the reference to “ responsible government ” (Ronaldshay,
“ Life of Curzon ”, Vol. Ill, p. 167). It may be recalled that
Lord Curzon, on leaving India in 1905, had declared in his

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

farewell speech : “ I earnestly hope that the Viceroy of India
will never cease to be Head of the Government of India in the
fullest sense of the term.”

The haste with which this Declaration was issued is self-
evident from the fact that only after it was issued was an
elaborate and prolonged process of governmental enquiry
instituted to find out what it was proposed to do, resulting
finally in the Government of India Act of 1919.

The meaning of the Declaration, whether it was intended to
imply Dominion Status (the term is not used in the Declaration)
in the same sense as the self-governing Dominions, and if so,
whether it was intended to imply the reaching of such a goal
in any measurable term of time, has remained a subject
of c ntroversy.

The key to the policy was the conception of “ stages ” for
which the British ruling authorities were to be the “judges of
the time and measure of each advance The first stage took
two years to reach. This was a lightning speed compared to
the second stage. The Montagu-Chelmsford Report had
contemplated ten-year intervals for periodic review and
revision to advance to a new stage. The second stage,
however, took sixteen years to reach, with the Government of
India Act of 1935 after seven years of exhaustive enquiry
The Simon Report recommended dropping of the ten-year
intervals as far too short. “ Ten years is not long enough to
see the real effect on administration of the new ‘ system ’
(Simon Report, Vol. II, p. 7).

MacDonald, as Prime Minister in 1924, admirably caught
the spirit of evolutionary enquiry and cautious step-by-step
advance of the new imperialist policy in India (less evolu
tionary and dilatory when it came to practical measures
such as the Bengal Emergency Ordinances imposed by him at
the same time and establishing the system of imprisonment
without trial), when he made his appeal to India in his
speech at York in April of that year :

“ Keep your faith in the British democracy, do keep your
faith in the Labour Government. An enquiry was being
held by the Indian Government, and the Labour Govern
ment meant that enquiry to produce results which would be
the basis of a consideration of the Indian Constitution, its
working and its possibilities, which they hoped would help

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 433

Indians to co-operate on the way, on the journey toward

the creation of a system which would be self-government.”

The hopeful precision of this programme and pledge has here
embodied the essence of modern imperialist policy towards
India in the classic form of that inimitable style of which
MacDonald was the peculiar master.

Two legislative measures have so far been enacted to
implement the new policy.

The first, the Government of India Act of 1919, established
the system known as Dyarchy. No change was made in the
Central Government; but in the Provincial Governments
certain subjects, such as Health, Education and similar
constructive subjects for which there was no money, were
“ transferred ” to Indian Ministers responsible to the Pro¬
vincial Legislatures, while the other more strategic subjects,
such as Police and Land Revenue, were “ reserved ” in the
hands of Ministers responsible to the Governor. The Pro¬
vincial Legislatures were established with a majority of
elected members, on the basis of a restricted property franchise
representing (apart from Burma) 2-8 per cent, of the popula¬
tion. The Provincial Governors had power both to veto
legislation and to “ certify ” legislation they wished adopted,
if not accepted by the legislature. At the Centre two Chambers
were established : a Council of State, nearly half nominated
and the rest elected from the narrowest upper circle (less than
18,000 electors for the whole country); and a Legislative
Assembly, with an elected majority on the basis of a franchise
even more restricted than that for the Provinces (less than half
of 1 per cent, of the population). The Governor-General
had unlimited over-riding powers to veto or certify legislation.

Dyarchy was universally condemned, not only by Indian
opinion, but also after a few years’ experience by ruling
imperialist opinion ; and it is unnecessary for present purposes
to analyse its glaring limitations. The Secretary of State for
India described it in 1925 as “ the kind of pedantic hidebound
constitution to which Anglo-Saxon communities had not
generally responded, and . . . unlikely to make a successful
appeal to a community whose political ideas were ... so
largely derived from Anglo-Saxon models ” .(Lord Birkenhead
in the House of Lords, July 7, 1925). The “ responsibility ”
of the Indian Ministers was admittedly a farce. The Simon

434 THE battleground in india to-day

Report unsparingly exposed the defects of the system, by which
the Indian Ministers were in practice “ largely dependent on
the official bloc ” and regarded as “ Government men ” ;
the “ almost irresistible impulse towards a unification of
Government ” defeated the paper plans of divided responsi¬
bility. Indeed, nothing is more striking than the impartial
justice with which each successive stage of imperialist con¬
stitution-making has exposed the pretensions of its predecessor.
The Montagu-Chelmsford Report was merciless to the
illusory claims of the Morley-Minto Reforms. The Simon
Report was no less unsparing in pointing out the shortcomings
and failure of the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms. The present
Constitution is, however, as always, assumed to be a paragon,
condemned only by the shortsightedness of Indian opinion.

The Government of India Act of 1935 represents the second
constitutional enactment following that of 1919. As this is
the Constitution in force, since 1937 (though the main Federal
section has not been brought into operation and has been
indefinitely suspended since the war), it will be necessary to
examine it in greater detail in the next section, in order to
determine how far it represents a stage of advance towards
self-government, or how far a scheme for the strengthening of
effective imperialist power.

The twenty-two years since 1917 have thus seen a continuous

process of experiment and constitution-making. At the end
of this nearly one quarter of a century the power of imperialism
still so far remains absolute.

Is “ Dominion Status ” the goal of modern imperialist
policy in India? And if so, in what sense? In the sense in
which the ordinary man understands it, in the same sense in
which Canada or Australia enjoy Dominion Status? Or in
some peculiar sense, such as that with which the Indian
Secretary of State, Wedgwood Benn, in 1929 startled his
hearers by announcing that India already enjoyed “ Dominion
Status ”, since “ India ” was independently “ represented ”
at the League of Nations and had independently signed the
Versailles Treaty ? And in what period of time is this unknown
goal to be reached ? On all these questions there have been the
most diverse answers and contradictory expressions. The whole
issue is wrapped in an impenetrable fog of diplomatic verbiage.

The Declaration of 1 q 1 7 contained no mention of Dominion

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 435

Status. Nor did the Government of India Act of 1919. The
first approach appeared in the Royal Instrument of Instructions
to the Viceroy, referring to the new Act, in March, 1921,
which declared the aim “ that British India may attain its
due place among our Dominions This may evidently
mean anything — or nothing. The demand for a Preamble
to the Government of India Act of 1935, to contain explicit
reference to the promise of Dominion Status, was refused.

Apart from the legal documents, there have been made
from time to time various statements in speeches of varying
degrees of importance or definiteness, all without binding
power. In 1928 MacDonald, when out of office, declared :

“ I hope that within a period of months rather than of
years there will be a new Dominion added to the Common¬
wealth of our Nations, a Dominion of another race, which
will find self-respect as an equal within the Commonwealth.
I refer to India.”

(J. R. MacDonald, speech at the British Common¬
wealth Labour Conference, July 2, 1928.)

What followed “ within a period of months rather than of
years ” was a reign of terror in India and the imprisonment of
some 100,000 Indians by MacDonald for the crime of agitating
for self-government.

In 1929 the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, issued a statement which
was intended to prepare the ground for the Round Table
Conference. He said :

“ I am authorised on behalf of His Majesty’s Government to
say that in their judgement it is implicit in the declaration of
1917 that the natural issue of India’s constitutional progress
as there contemplated is the attainment of Dominion Status.”

(Lord Irwin, statement on October 31, 1929.)
This statement aroused a storm of protest from all the Elder
Statesmen in the British Parliament ; and it was only justified
on the ground that it had produced an “ excellent effect ”
in a difficult diplomatic situation in India. But the Secretary
of State steadfastly refused all attempts to cross-examine him
as to what it meant : “ the declaration of the Viceroy stands as
it stands, and I must ask the right honourable gentleman not
to cross-examine me with a view to making difficulties ”.
What is the meaning of “ Dominion Status ”? Here the

; |

! *
• i

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

answers have been no less varying. As we have seen, the
Indian Secretary of State in December, 1929, produced the
ingenious argument that Dominion Status had already been
achieved by India for a decade, ever since “ India ” signed the
Versailles Treaty and became a member of the League of
Nations. The compatibility of this frequently favoured line
of argument with the simultaneous promise of Dominion
Status as the future goal of India’s constitutional progress, as
in the Viceroy’s declaration, was not explained.

Alternatively, the argument is favoured that Dominion Status
is, after all, impossible to define (although the Statute of West¬
minster appears to have defined it). Thus The Times in 1935
with reference to the demand for the inclusion of the aim of
Dominion Status in a preamble to the Government of India Bill :

“ * Dominion Status ’ is not susceptible of definition in a
precise constitutional document. . . . ‘ Dominion Status ’
has carried so many different shades of meaning at different
times, and is applied to-day to sp many varieties of Govern¬
ment, that it would be hopeless to attempt to define the
phrase with common agreement even in the preamble to a
Parliamentary Bill.”

{The Times editorial, January 25, 1935.)

So the glittering goal vanishes into the realm of the unknown
and the unknowable. This was written after the Statute of
Westminster had very precisely defined Dominion Status in
terms of a “ constitutional document ” and a “ Parliamentary
Bill ”. But then that was for Canada, Australia or South
Africa — not for India.

How far off is this goal of an undefined and undefinable
“ Dominion Status ” ? Nobody knows. No date is assigned.
But the leading responsible statesmen of imperialism have not
failed to make clear their conviction that it is very far off.

Lord Birkenhead, former Secretary of State for India,
declared in 1929 :

“ No sane man could assign any approximate period for
the date on which we could conceive India attaining
Dominion Status. No one had the right to tell the peopl
of India that they were likely in any near period to attain
to Dominion Status.”

(Lord Birkenhead, speech in the House of Lords,
November 5, 1929.)

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 437

Similarly Baldwin was no less emphatically negative :

“None can say when responsible government will be estab¬
lished ; none can say what shape it will take. . . . Nobody
knows what Dominion Status will be when India has respon¬
sible government, whether that date be near or distant.”

(Stanley Baldwin, in the House of Commons on
November 7, 1929.)

Thus the unknown goal disappears into the impenetrable
distance of an unknown future.

Since the outbreak of the present war in 1939, the question
of the goal of Dominion Status has again been brought to the
forefront, as the Government spokesman have once again sought
to hold out this goal as the alternative to the demand for
independence. On October 17, 1939, the Viceroy, Lord
Linlithgow, declared :

“ The intention and anxiety of His Majesty’s Government
is, as stated in the Instrument of Instructions to the Governor-
General, to further the partnership between India and the
United Kingdom within the Empire to the end that India
may attain her due place amongst the great Dominions.”

What that “ due place ” would be was not vouchsafed. In the
Parliamentary debate which followed the Viceroy’s declara¬
tion, Sir Samuel Hoare on behalf of the Government affirmed
that the aim was “ the Dominion Status of ig26 ” :

“There are no two kinds of Dominion Status assomepeople
seem to think. The Dominion Status that we contemplated
was the Dominion Status of 1926.”

(Sir Samuel Hoare, House of Commons, October 26,

1939)-

But he went on at once to add a new mystification :

“Dominion Status is not a prize that is given to a deserving
community, but is the recognition of facts that actually
exist. As soon as these facts exist in India — and in my own
view the sooner they exist the better — the aim of our policy
will be achieved.”

What lay behind that oracular dictum was not in fact so mysteri¬
ous. Sir Samuel Hoare continued with a statement which once
again provided the familiar joker in the pack of promises :

“ If there are difficulties in the way, they are not of

438 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

our making. They are inherent in the many divisions
between classes and communities in a great sub-continent.
. . . The Princes are afraid of domination by British India ;
Moslems are firmly opposed to a Hindu majority at the
centre ; the Depressed Classes and other minorities genuinely
believe that responsible government, meaning a Government
dependent upon a Hindu majority, will sacrifice their
interests. These anxieties still exist. I wish that they did
not. But as long as they do exist it is impossible for the
Government to accept a demand for immediate and full
responsibility at the centre on a particular date.”

Thus the manoeuvre is once again the familiar one. On the
one hand the promise of Dominion Status is held out in general
terms without any specific proposal or date. On the other
hand the plea of the “ divisions ” of the Indian people is
brought into play to defeat any question of its realisation.
The promise of Dominion Status is used as a diplomatic pawn
to meet a critical situation and counter the demand for inde¬
pendence ; but the promise is hedged round with such quali¬
fications as will safely leave its realisation as an unknown
question for an unknown date.

In contrast to these shifting fogs of limitless uncertainty,
when it is a question of fulfilling the pledge of 1917 or of the
prospect of India attaining “ responsible government ”, the
scene changes and gives place to the solidest rock of certainty
when it comes to affirming the unshakable maintenance of
British rule in India in the visible future. Here we are on
firm ground ; here the tone becomes vibrant and confident.

Thus Lloyd George, as Prime Minister, in his famous
“ steel frame ” speech in 1922 :

“ That Britain under no circumstances will relinquish her
responsibility in India is a cardinal principle, not merely of
the present Government, but of any Government which will 1
command the confidence of the people in this country. . . . I
“ I can see no period when India can dispense with the
guidance and the assistance of this small nucleus of the
British Civil Service. . . . They are the steel frame of the
whole structure.”

(Lloyd George, in the House of Commons on August 2,
1922.)

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 439
Similarly Churchill declared in 1930:

“ The British nation has no intention whatever of relin¬
quishing effectual control of Indian life and progress.

“ We have no intention of casting away that most truly
bright and precious jewel in the Crown of the King, which
more than all our other Dominions and Dependencies
constitutes the glory and strength of the British Empire.”

(Winston Churchill, speech to the Indian Empire
Society, December 11, 1930.)

In no less definite language Baldwin, speaking as Prime
Minister, declared in 1934:

“It is my considered judgement in all the changes and
chances of this wide world to-day, that you have a good
chance of keeping the whole of that sub-Continent of India
in the Empire for ever.”

(Stanley Baldwin, speech to the Central Council of the
National Union of Conservative and Unionist
Associations, December 4, 1934.)

Similarly, he explained the purpose of the constitutional
reforms, speaking in 1931 :

“ So far from contemplating any weakening of the bonds
that unite Great Britain and India, we wish to bring about a
closer union than we have ever had before. It is upon this
task of closer union that we are now engaged.”

(Stanley Baldwin, speech at Newton Abbot, March 6,

I93I0

The conclusion from this survey is inescapable. It is
impossible to survey the cumulative effect of these and count¬
less similar statements, alike of ironic scepticism and elusiveness
on the prospect of responsible government, in India, and of
positive certainty and dogmatism on the enduring maintenance
of British power in India, in conjunction with the realities of
the various constitutional schemes and projects, which leave
every strategic point with triple safeguards in British hands,
without reaching the inexorable conclusion of the real character
of British policy in India in the modern period. There is no
excuse for blindness or uncertainty or credulous illusions.

The basic imperialist policy has not changed. There has
only been a change of tactics.

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

44O THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

The mirage of a hypothetical undefined, unknown and
undated “ Dominion Status ” is the golden vision to draw on
those Indian politicians who may thus be caught into co¬
operation. But the reality of the constitutional reforms is
profoundly different in character.

The basic aim of the maintenance of imperialist domination
continues in the post-1917 period, as in the preceding period.
The path of the reforms is the continuance of the pre-191 7 path
of the reforms, developing into more difficult conditions and a
more advanced stage of imperialist decline. The aim remains,
not the aim of the progressive liquidation of imperialism in
India, and handing over of the government of India to the
Indian people, but the saving of imperialism in India by
seeking to draw into collaboration, under careful safeguards,
an upper-class minority of the Indian people to assist in holding
the Indian people in subjection for the maintenance of im¬
perialist rule and exploitation. This is the essential strategic
purpose of the loudly boosted constitutional reforms and “ new
angle of vision ”. In the words of Baldwin, the author of the
new Constitution :

“ Our Viceroys and our Governors in India, and under
them the Services that will be recruited by the Secretary of
State and safeguarded by parliament, will have the duty and
the means to ensure, if need be, that that political power is
exercised by Indian Ministers and Legislatures for the
purposes that we intend .”

(Stanley Baldwin, broadcast on the Government of
India Bill, February 5, 1935 — italics added.)

4. The New Constitution of 1935
The new Constitution embodied in the Government of
India Act of 1935, and brought into force in 1937, "twenty
years after the Montagu Declaration, is the third imperialist
Constitution devised for India in the modern period — if we
treat the Morley-Minto Reforms as the first. It was elabor¬
ated after a prolonged gestation of over seven years, from the
first appointment of the Simon Commission, with considerable
controversy in Britain and conflict in India.

This new Constitution is commonly treated in British
expression as a virtual realisation of self-government, subject

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 441

to a few necessary transitional safeguards, or at any rate a very
large and generous instalment of self-government. In conse¬
quence its unanimous rejection by Indian opinion, not only by
the National Congress, but even by Indian Liberal or Moderate
opinion, is often regarded with surprise as unreasonable even
by many who normally hold liberal democratic views when
they are dealing with other than colonial peoples.

A more careful examination of its actual provisions will
reveal the reasons for this opposition, and will make clear why
the Indian political leaders, while recognising and utilising
to the full the undoubted facilities provided by its machinery,
especially in the provincial sections, for the development and
extension of the national movement, nevertheless reject and
oppose the Constitution as a whole, and especially its federal
sections, seeing in it, not a scheme of self-government, but a
scheme for strengthening the imperialist hold in India.

The Constitution consists of two main sections : the Federal
section, for the Central Government of the projected All-India
Federation of British India and the Indian States ; and the
Provincial section, for the Provinces in British India. The
Provincial section came into operation in 1937; the Federal
section has still to be brought into operation (although the
existing Government already partially operates under its
provisions), and the National Congress, while having taken
office in the majority of Provinces under the Provincial
section, is committed to opposing the coming into operation of
the Federal section.

The key to the Constitution is the conception of Federation.
Herein lies its distinctive new departure; and herein lies
concealed its profoundly reactionary character.

The political unification of India is essential to Indian
advance, political, social or economic. This is recognised by
every representative of every school and tendency. The
senseless checkerboard division of India into hundreds of
mainly petty States; the complete division of the unity of
India into two entirely different administrative systems,
covering 45 per cent, and 55 per cent, of the territory re¬
spectively, with an incredible criss-cross intersection of
boundaries following no conceivable reason dr justification,
geographical, economic, racial, linguistic or cultural : all this
is an anachronism which should have been long ago overcome,

442 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

and whose maintenance is a measure of the maintenance of
every reactionary form under British rule in India. For, as
we have seen, the Indian “ States ” have been artificially
maintained in existence, and saved from collapse, solely by
the strong arm of the British power, not for any needs of the
Indian people, but as reactionary buttresses of British rule —

“ friendly fortresses in debatable territory ”, in the words of
the official Government spokesman.

But the new proposals are by no means proposals to overcome
this division, to end these obsolete petty despotisms or establish
a uniform administrative system even in the barest elements.
They are only proposals to increase the power of these reac¬
tionary anachronisms, and to bring them into the heart of the
central government of India in order to strengthen the
weakening imperialist hold in British India and to counter
the national movement— that is, the movement which stands
for real national unification.

What is Federation? What are the elementary principles
of any genuine Federation? It is only necessary to examine
the great historical examples of Federation, such as the United
States of America, the Swiss Republic or the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics, to answer this question.

A Federation is the voluntary union of independent sovereign
units, impelled by common political aims, ideals or external
needs, to establish a sovereign central organ based on the units
and responsible to them or to their populations, and establish¬
ing a restricted measure of common organisation, falling
short of full centralisation, but such as to institute within the
voluntarily agreed limitations a single federal law for all the
citizens of the union.

Judged by all these tests the proposed “ Federation ” for India is a
complete misnomer — a trick of language to describe an arbitrary
despotic dictatorship, with certain special reactionary buttresses intro¬
duced into its structure.

First, sovereignty does not lie in the Federation.
Sovereignty is explicitly laid down by the Act to lie in the
British ruling power outside the Federation, with the British
Crown, with the British Governor-General appointed from
London, responsible solely to the British Government and
exercising in fact despotic power, with the British Secretary of
State responsible to the British Parliament, and finally with ’

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 443

the British Parliament as the ultimate authority. There is no
sovereignty within the Federation or the members composing
the Federation. In other words, it is not a Federation, but a
certain administrative device of a despotic rule.

Second, the union is not a voluntary union of sovereign
elements. Even if the adherence of the puppet Princes, who
are compelled in practice to act as Britain decrees and are
only stage mouthpieces of Britain’s will, may be diplomatically
treated as a “ voluntary ” act (with no part or say of the 80
millions composing their territories), the adherence of the
Provinces of British India, composing three-fourths of the
Federation, is a compulsory act imposed from outside, and
not a voluntary act.

Third, and most extraordinary of all for any conception of
“ Federation ”, there is no system of federal law, lawmaking
or administration established for the Federation as a whole.
There is no fundamental Declaration of Rights of the citizens
of the Federation. The subjects of the Princes remain without
rights, unaffected by Federation. But the despotic Princes
take part in the Federal Chambers to make laws for the semi-
enfranchised citizens of British India. The Federal Legis¬
lature makes laws, not for the Federation, but for a section,
for British India. Was there ever such a contradiction of the
very conception of Federation? Once again it is obvious
that this so-called “ Federation ” does not represent a change
or closer union for India as a whole, but only the bringing in of
new reactionary elements into British India.

It is thus necessary to understand at the outset that the
question of Federation is not the question of the political
unification of India, which is necessary, which is recognised
by all as necessary, and which is bound to come, and is likely,
when it does come, to take the form of a genuine political
Federation. The question of the so-called “ Federation ” of
this Constitution is the question of an anti-democratic device,
which, while leaving all the evils of the existing political
division and despotic States system untouched, seeks to intro¬
duce a new reactionary force into that portion of India which has
succeeded in winning certain limited semi-democratic institu¬
tions and where the national movement has made advance.

The scheme for so-called “ Federation ” should therefore be cor¬
rectly termed the scheme to give the despotic Indian Princes, responsible

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

to nobody save their British masters, power to legislate for the 270
millions of British India. When “ Federation ” is hereafter
referred to, in dealing with the question of the Constitution and
the opposition of the National Congress, it should be remem¬
bered that this is what is meant.

This actual objective of “ Federation ”, to increase the
weight of the reactionary forces in British India, is shown by
the special representation and weighting given to the Princes
in both Chambers of the proposed Federal Legislature.

The Federal Legislature is to consist of two Chambers, an
Upper Chamber or Council of State, and a Lower Chamber or
Federal Assembly. The Princes are not only represented in
both Houses, but over-represented in both Houses, out of all
proportion to the size of their States.

In the Council of State, out of 260 seats, 1 04, or two-fifths,
are allocated to the Princes.

In the Federal Assembly, out of 375 seats, 125, or one-third,
are allocated to the Princes.

The proportion of the population of the Indian States to the
whole of India is 24 per cent., or less than one-quarter.

This disproportion is still more obvious if a financial basis is
taken. It is estimated that 90 per cent, of the Federal
revenues will be drawn from British India and 10 per cent,
from the States. Yet the Princes are to have two-fifths of the
representation in the Upper House and one-third in the Lower.

Thus the so-called “ representative ” system is nullified at the outset
by the insertion of a solid non-elected non-representative reactionary bloc
in each House, replacing the old “ official bloc ’’—but more
reactionary and constituting a much larger proportion than
under the old Montagu-Chelmsford Constitution (the non
elected official bloc in the old Legislative Assembly was 40
out of 145 members, or a little over one-quarter).

To complete the negation of “ representative ” institutions
at the Centre, it is only necessary to examine the extraordinary
restrictive and weighting devices elaborated to govern the
choice of the elected members.

In the Council of State, of the remaining three-fifths or
156 seats, only 75 are general seats open to direct election
from the narrowest upper-class section of the population, with
an electorate estimated to number about 150,000 or 0-05 per
cent, of the population of British India ; the remaining seats

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 445

are allocated among Moslems (49), Sikhs, Europeans, Anglo-
Indians, Indian Christians, etc.

In the Federal Assembly, of the remaining two-thirds or
250 seats, only 105 are general seats open to indirect election
from the Provincial Assemblies, but 19 of these are reserved
for the “ scheduled castes ” (or depressed classes) ; the rest are
divided in the usual way among communal or other groupings.
The resultant picture of this elaborately devised Federal

Assembly or Lower House is as follows :

Princes’ nominees . . . .125

General seats (open) .... 86

Moslems . 82

Scheduled castes . 19

Commerce and Industry . . .11

Labour . . . . ... 10

Women . 9

Europeans . 8

Indian Christians .... 8

Landholders . 7

Sikhs . . . 6

Anglo-Indians . 4

375

This is not an Upper House. It is the Lower House or sup¬
posed “ popular ” assembly. Only 86 seats out of 375, or between
one-fourth and one-fifth, are generally open to election, and these in¬
directly from assemblies based ultimately on electorates representing
about one-ninth of the population. How the Tsar’s mouth would
have watered at such a “ Duma ” !

Let us imagine the leader of the Indian popular movement,
not merely of a great popular majority, as in any normal
functioning parliamentary system, but of an overwhelming
united national movement of the people, such as the 1937
elections revealed in India, contemplating his possibilities in
such an Assembly. Let us suppose he has got every single
general seat without exception, 86 ; let us add every labour
seat, 10, and even add every women’s seat, 9, though the
character of the property qualification makes this more diffi¬
cult, and these “ women’s seats ” by no means represent Indian
women. He has still only 105 seats, or less than one-third,

446 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

even though representing a mythically unanimous vote of the
people. He must try to court the Moslem representatives.
In practice this means already coming to terms with the
Government ; for the nature of communal electorates means
that the representatives are chosen, not on the basis of mass
interests, or of general social and political platforms, but of
communal interests, thus giving the best chance as a rule to
those who have already established themselves as active com¬
munal politicians — that is, as reactionaries. Our popular
leader will in consequence be lucky if he wins half of them,
and he will have had to have watered down his programme
considerably by this time. But let us again suppose mythically
perfect conditions, that he wins every single Moslem repre¬
sentative, that complete Hindu Moslem unity is thus estab¬
lished, not only of the masses, but also with these communal
representatives. Under these conditions of mythical perfec¬
tion he has still only reached exactly 187 seats, or one short of
a majority. And there is still the Council of State out of
reach. Truly a “ foolproof” Constitution!

But not foolproof enough for the super-careful imperialist
authorities. We have still to come to the “ powers ” of these
precious Assemblies, and the last rudimentary figment of
“ responsible ” government at the Centre dwindles away.

A Council of Ministers, chosen by the Governor-General
and responsible to him, will exist. But their competence will
be strictly limited. Four Departments — namely, Defence,
External Affairs, Ecclesiastical Affairs and Excluded Areas —
will be under the sole control of the Governor-General. A
Financial Adviser will be separately appointed responsible for
safeguarding financial stability and credit. An Advocate-
General will be separately appointed to deal with legal
matters. The Civil Service and Police will be under the sole
appointment of the Secretary of State. The Federal Bank
and Railways will be under special authorities. A host of other
special provisions prevent infringement of the basic laws of
British power or any action detrimental to British economic
interests or the rights of minorities or the rights of the States.
Over all runs the general over-riding power of the Governor-
General. What remains within the competence of the Ministers
is difficult to determine. It is probable, however, that they will
be free to supervise the efficient running of the Post Office.

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 447

Will the Ministers be responsible to the Legislature ? There
is no provision in the Act to make this necessary. Their
salaries will not be voted by the Legislature. They are not
required to resign if a majority votes no confidence in them.
The Instrument of Instructions to the Governor- General
recommends selection of Ministers like to command a stable
majority in the Legislature. But it also recommends inclusion
of representatives of the States and the minorities.

What of the powers of the Legislature ?

The first key to control by a representative body is finance.
What is the position with regard to finance ?

The Budget is to be divided into two parts : “ expenditure
charged upon the revenues of the Federation ” and “ other
expenditure ”. The first includes all the heavier and principal
expenditure, defence costs, debt interest, the major official
salaries and pensions, etc. All this is not to be put to the
vote in the legislature. These “ non-votable ” items consti¬
tute from three-fourths to four-fifths of the total expenditure :
75 per cent., according to the estimate of Professor G. N. Joshi
in his “ Indian Administration ” (p. 69) ; 80 per cent., accord¬
ing to the estimate of the National Congress. The Governor-
General can at his discretion determine whether any item of
expenditure falls into the “ non-votable ” class.

There remains the 20 per cent., or 25 per cent., of minor
expenditure on which the Legislature may express an opinion.
But only an opinion. Even within this minor sphere of ex¬
penditure the Legislature has not control. No financial bill
or proposal for a grant may be introduced unless it has first
received the recommendation of the Governor-General. If the
Assembly refuses or reduces any grant, the Governor- General
may declare the grant to be necessary for the discharge of his
special responsibilities, and authorise the expenditure, in spite
of the vote of the Legislature. Thus the first elementary condition
for any responsible representative organ of finance is completely
absent.

The second key to control by a representative body is the
control of the State machine, of the military power and
bureaucracy.

Defence is reserved outside the purview of the Legislature.
The Civil Services and Police are appointed by the Secretary
of State. Their rights and conditions of service are protected

448 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

by special provisions. The Rules for the Police are in the
hands of the Governor-General, who controls absolutely the
Secret Police, or Political Police.

The third key to control is the law-making power, the power
of passing laws or refusing consent to proposed laws.

There is no doubt that the Legislature will be allowed to
pass laws of which the Government approves within a re¬
stricted sphere of subjects. The sphere is restricted by a long
series of provisions. It may not touch or even discuss financial
measures, unless these have received the prior approval of the
Governor-General. It may not touch legislation affecting any
of the basic foundations of British power, military questions,
the rights of the civil services, of the States, of minorities,
British economic interests, etc. In particular, it will not be
open to the Federal Legislature to pass any measure which

(a) imposes any restriction on British subjects domiciled
in the United Kingdom in regard to their right of entry into
British India, or travel, residence, the acquisition, holding
or disposal of property, the holding of public office, or the
carrying on of any occupation, trade, business or profession ;

( b ) discriminates against any British subject domiciled in
the United Kingdom or any Company incorporated in the
United Kingdom in respect of taxation in India ;

(, c ) discriminates against ships registered in the United
Kingdom, their crew, passengers, cargo, etc. ;

(d) discriminates against Companies incorporated under
the laws of the United Kingdom and carrying on business
in India, in respect of any grant, bounty or subsidy payable
out of the revenues of the Federation.

These “ capitulations ”, which veto any attempt to promote
specially or give special concessions or subsidies to Indian
industry, trade or shipping (in the same way as is done by
the British Government in Britain to British industry, trade or
shipping), unless similar concessions are granted at the same
time to British commercial and industrial interests in India,
reveal the concern to secure the ironclad safeguarding of the
interests of British finance-capital in India.

Within the remaining permitted sphere of legislation, the
Legislature has still no independent powers. If the Legislature
should happen to pass any bill which the Government does

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 449

not wish, and assuming that the super-reactionary Council of
State has also passed it, the Governor-General may then
“ withhold ” his assent altogether. Alternatively, he may
“ reserve ” it for further consideration, and if he has reserved
it for twelve months, it drops. Alternatively, if he should
happen to have given his assent, and later changes his mind,
he may then “ disallow ” it, and it becomes null and void.

On the other hand, if the Legislature fails to pass a measure
which the Government considers necessary, the Governor-
General may then pass it as “ a Governor-General’s Act ”,
and it will have the force of ordinary legislation. Alterna¬
tively, the Governor-Genferal may issue Ordinances with the
force of law for six months at a time.

Such are the “ powers ” of this “ Legislature ”. The
laborious care in its selection might have seemed superfluous.

But all this by no means exhausts the anxious precautions
of the imperialist authorities, who were manifestly concerned to
make assurance trebly sure that there should be no hint of a pos¬
sibility of a whisper of self-government reaching through the pad¬
locked doors of the system. We have still to examine more fully
the final charmed realm of reserved powers and “ safeguards ”.

When we pass from the “ powers ” of the Legislature to the
powers of the Governor-General, we pass from the region of
night into the region of daylight.

No less than ninety-four sections of the Act confer special
discretionary powers on the Governor-General. Thus the
Governor-General may at his discretion (that is, independently
of any advice of Ministers or opinion of elected bodies)

(1) Appoint or dismiss Ministers.

(2) Veto legislation passed by the Legislature.

(3) Pass legislation rejected by the Legislature.

(4) Prohibit the discussion of legislation.

(5) Issue Ordinances.

(6) Instruct Provincial Governors to issue Ordinances.

(7) Veto Provincial legislation.

(8) Issue Rules for the Police.

(9) Control the use of the armed forces.

(10) Dissolve the Legislature.

(11) Suspend the Constitution.

This is only a selection of his discretionary powers.

450 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

Alongside this come the reserved powers. As Reserved De¬
partments he holds under his exclusive control Defence,
External Affairs, Ecclesiastical Affairs and Excluded Areas.

Finally come the special powers and responsibilities, de¬
signed to stop up the last loopholes, if any such might be
imagined to exist. The Governor-General has eight “ special
responsibilities ” in pursuance of which he may take any action
that he individually decides to be necessary for their discharge.
These “ special responsibilities ” (commonly referred to as the
“ safeguards ”, although the safeguards really run right
through the Act) cover :

(1) “ prevention of any grave menace to the peace or
tranquillity of India or any part thereof” ;

(2) “ safeguarding of the financial stability and credit of
the Federal Government ” ;

(3) “ safeguarding of the legitimate interests of minori ties ”;

(4) protection of the rights and “ legitimate interests ”
of members and ex-members, or their dependants, of the
public services ;

(5) prevention of commercial or financial discrimination
against British individuals or companies operating in India,
whether the companies are incorporated in India or in the
United Kingdom ;

(6) prevention of discrimination against British imports
into India;

(7) protection of the rights of the States and Princes;

(8) a grand final omnibus safeguard, “ securing that the
due discharge of his functions with respect to matters with
respect to which he is by or under this Act required to act
in his discretion, is not prejudiced or impended by any
course of action taken with respect to any other matter ”.

To pursue the special (and lengthiest) sections of the Act,
in which the direct interests of British finance-capital, of trad¬
ing and investment, of British companies operating in India,
of debt, of the railways, of banking, are specifically protected
or placed under independent authorities, would take too long
for the purpose of any general survey of the Constitution as
a whole. But it must be said that these are the most illuminat¬
ing sections of the Act for revealing the true function of the

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 45I

entire Constitution as an elaborate mechanism for the pro¬
tection of British finance-capitalist exploitation in India.

The Provincial sections of the Constitution are subordinate
to the reactionary, and in effect virtually autocratic, machinery
at the Centre. In general, the provincial machinery reproduces
the appropriate parts of the central machinery in a slightly
milder form. The Provincial Governor has corresponding
over-riding powers, powers to veto legislation or pass inde¬
pendent legislation, effective control of police, law and order
and finance, and his own set of seven special responsibilities.
The Legislatures are similarly composed on a communal basis ;
and Upper chambers, which did not previously exist in any
Province, have been thrust on all the leading Provinces, Bengal,
Bombay, Madras, United Provinces, and Bihar.

Nevertheless, the machinery is more elastic in the Provinces
than in the Centre, and even susceptible to a popular move¬
ment, for the following reasons.

First, there is no element of the Princes in the Provinces.
The Legislatures are entirely elected, and are directly elected,
although the Upper Chambers are reactionary and based on
a very restricted franchise.

Second, there are no Reserved Departments in the same way
as at the Centre, although there are special provisions with
regard to police. The Governor has under his individual
control the Rules for the Police ; the Secret Police or Political
Police are protected by special regulations, and even their
records may not be accessible to Indian Ministers ; to counter
any movement which may be deemed to have the aim “ to
overthrow the government as by law established ”, the
Governor may assume sole control in any direction he thinks
fit, if he considers that “ the peace or tranquillity of the Pro¬
vince is endangered Subject to these very heavy limitations
in respect of the real machinery of power, the Provincial
Ministry functions for the administration as a whole, and can
develop a certain degree of collective responsibility.

Third, there are not the same elaborate restrictions upon
legislation, not because the powers of legislation are broader,
but because they are narrower ; the more important issues of
an All-India character, affecting British special interests or
the economic-financial regime, cannot arise for the Provinces.

Within narrow limits, therefore, there is the scope and

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

possibility for popular Ministries to perform, not a governing
role, but a restricted useful role in the Provinces.

The electorate for the Provincial Legislative Assemblies
consists of 30-1 million voters in the eleven Provinces of British
India, or 1 1 per cent, of the population (as against 2-8 per
cent, in the Montagu-Chelmsford Constitution). This com¬
pares with 67 per cent, of the population enfranchised in
Britain. The qualification is mainly on the basis of property,
taxpaying, tenancy-holding of a certain value, with an addi¬
tional literacy qualification. The number of women electors
is 4-3 millions. The number polling in contested constitu¬
encies in the 1937 elections was 15-5 millions, or 55 per cent,
of the electorate in those constituencies.

In the eleven Provincial Legislative Assemblies the 1,585
seats are divided as follows :

General seats (open) .... 657

Moslems ...... 482

Scheduled castes . . . . -151

Commerce and Industry ... 56

Women ...... 41

Labour ...... 38

Landholders . . . . -37

Sikhs ...... 34

Europeans ...... 26

Backward areas and tribes ... 24

Indian Christians . . . .20

Anglo-Indians . . .11

University ...... 8

L585

It will be seen that, despite the still heavy and reactionary sub¬
division, the possibilities are relatively far more favourable than
in the Federal Assembly. The 808 “ general seats ” as a whole
(including those reserved for the depressed classes) are already
a majority, instead of being just over one-quarter, as in the
central legislature. This difference is still more marked in
certain of the leading Provinces. Thus in Bombay and the
United Provinces the open “ general seats ”, omitting those
reserved for the depressed classes, are already an absolute

THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION 453

majority — 99 of 175 in Bombay, and 120 of 228 in the United
Provinces — and here the Congress Ministries have been able to
function under the most favourable conditions. Very different
is the situation in Bengal, where the open “ general seats ” are
only 48 out of 250, and where, alone among leading Provinces,
the grotesque caricature of representation (see page 41 1) has
kept the Ministry out of Congress hands.

These are the conditions which made possible the form¬
ation of Congress Ministries in the majority of the Provinces.
It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that these
Provincial Congress Ministries had more than the most
limited powers, or could touch the vital problems which
await the realisation of self-government.

The controlling power of the autocratic Centre in British
hands, the statutory limitation on any action or interference in
any important issue affecting British interests or basic organisa¬
tion of the regime, the lack of finance, and the over-riding
powers of the Provincial Governors in the background leave a
very restricted sphere for the Provincial Ministries. This is
especially conspicuous in relation to finance. The expanding
sources of revenue, such as income tax and customs, are
allocated (subject to certain provisions for partial re-allocation
under the Niemeyer Award) to the Centre, 80 per cent, of
whose budget is not subject to vote by Indian representatives.
On the other hand, all the constructive forms of expenditure,
such as health and education, are handed over to the Provinces,
while for their main source of revenue they are given the
burdensome, inelastic and unpopular land revenue, which
urgently needs to be reduced. The purpose of this division, to
shackle the Provincial Ministries, and at the same time pass on
to them the discredit for the imperialist neglect of health and
education and all necessary social services or constructive
development, is obvious.

The Provincial Ministries cannot in consequence be regarded
as in any sense a realisation of self-government, not only
because of their heavily shackled powers in their limited
spheres, but above all because they cannot touch the basic
urgent issues before the Indian people. The formation of
Congress Ministries in the leading Provinces represented an
important step forward of the national movement to an
improved strategic position in the fight for self-government.

454 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

But the battle for self-government, for real national freedom,
has still to be fought.

The Constitution as a whole, especially in respect of its
decisive Federal Centre, stands revealed, the more closely it is
examined, not only as a denial of democracy, but as a
mechanism for strengthening the imperialist hold on India, and
for strengthening the weight of the reactionary forces within
the structure of imperialist rule. The “ responsibility ” is a
mockery. The power of imperialism is confirmed and
hardened. The real fight for self-government cannot take
place within the limits of this Constitution. Although
auxiliary and preparatory work has been achieved through
its machinery, the decisive battle can only be fought outside
the Constitution and against it.

The final verdict of every democrat on this Constitution can
only coincide with the verdict of the leading constitutional
authority in Britain, Professor A. B. Keith, who has frankly
described it in merciless terms :

“ It is difficult to resist the impression that either respon¬
sible government should have been frankly declared im¬
possible or the reality conceded; it is not surprising that
neither gratitude nor co-operation is readily forthcoming for
a hybrid product such as is the system of special responsi¬
bilities and acts to be done according to individual judgement.

“ For the federal scheme it is difficult to feel any satis¬
faction. The units of which it is composed are too disparate
to be joined suitably together, and it is too obvious that on
the British side the scheme is favoured in order to provide an
element of pure conservatism in order to combat any
dangerous elements of democracy contributed by British
India. ... It is difficult to deny the contention in India
that federation was largely evoked by the desire to evade the
issue of extending responsible government to the central
government of British India. Moreover, the withholding of ,
defence and external affairs from federal control, inevitable
as the course is, renders the alleged concession of responsi¬
bility all but meaningless.”

(Professor A. B. Keith, “ A Constitutional History of
India 1600-1935 ”, 1936, pp. 473-4.)

NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR 455

Chapter XVI : THE NATIONAL
STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF
THE WAR

“ It is unfortunate the Congress spokesmen have made a fetish of the
word ‘ independence ” — The Marquis of Zetland , Secretary of State for India
in a Press interview, February n, 1940.

The recent development of Indian Nationalism since the
great mass struggles of 1930-34 falls into two clearly marked
stages. First, there was the rebuilding of organisation
after the heavy blows of repression, and the hammering f
out of new lines of policy, followed by the advance through
the elections and the Congress Provincial Ministries to a
commanding position greater than any previously reached.
This is the achievement of the years 1934-39. Then followed V
growing crisis, already visible in its first forms in 1938-39,
and developing since the outbreak of war to new conflict.

1. The New Awakening

When the National Congress met at Lucknow in the spring
of 1 936, it was still recovering its forces from the effects of the
heavy struggle and Government repression which had reached
a climax in 1934. Membership stood at below half a million,
registering 457,000. The period 1934-36 had not been a
happy period in the life of the Congress. The immediate
effect of the defeat of 1934 had not yet given place to new
advance. The reactionary constitution which was the parting
legacy of Gandhi, and which had been adopted at the Bombay
Congress in 1934, had undoubtedly a restricting effect (it had
to be partially modified at Lucknow) . - The centre of activity
had been transferred to the parliamentary field, with the
participation in the elections for the Legislative Assembly at
the end of 1 934 ; but the parliamentary activity bore a hum¬
drum character and aroused no mass interest. The presidential
address of Nehru at the Lucknow Congress unsparingly
criticised the weakness of the existing position, and declared
that “ we have largely lost touch with the masses ”.

The presidential address of Jawaharlal Nehru at the Luck¬
now Congress was memorable for its proclamation of the

456 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

socialist aim, for its focusing of the Indian struggle in the
context of the gathering world struggle against fascism and re¬
action, and for its demand for a broad mass front or “joint
popular front ” of all the anti-imperialist forces, uniting the
workers and peasantry with the middle-class elements
dominantly represented in the Congress. New stirrings were
visible on all sides. The socialist wing was advancing in the
Congress. Already representing an important, though small,
grouping at Lucknow, by the Faizpur Congress in December,
1936, it numbered one-third of the Congress Committee. The
proposal put forward by Nehru at Lucknow for the collective
affiliation of the workers’ and peasants’ organisations to the
Congress was not adopted, being defeated on the Congress
Committee by 35 votes to 16, and giving place to the formation
of a Mass Contacts Committee for further consideration of the
question. But the idea of closer effective contact with the
masses, and with the social and economic interests of the
masses, was making itself felt on all sides. Attempts were being
made to elaborate a concrete agrarian programme of real
demands of the peasants, in place of the previous concentration
on advocacy of hand-spinning and uplift; and at Faizpur a
provisional agrarian programme of thirteen points was adopted
embodying demands with regard to the reduction of rents and
land revenue, annulment or scaling down of debts, abolition of
forced labour and feudal dues, a living wage for agricultural
labourers, and rights for peasants’ unions, though still in a very
general form.

From the Lucknow session of April, 1936, the modern history
of the National Congress opens. From this point a rapid
advance has taken place. By the Faizpur Congress in
December, 1936, membership had reached 636,000. By the
end of 1937, after the elections and the formation of the
Provincial Congress Ministries, it leapt up to over 3 millions,
totalling 3,102,000 at Haripura in February, 1938. By the end
of 1938 it had passed the 4 million mark, with 1 j million
members in the United Provinces alone; and by the Tripuri
Congress in 1939 it touched 5 millions.

2. The Election Victory of 1937
The attitude of the National Congress to the new Constitution
had already been declared in principle in 1934, when t'

NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR 457

demand for the Constituent Assembly had been adopted. The
Lucknow Congress approved the decision to contest the
elections under the new Act in the coming year. In August,
1936, the Election Manifesto was issued, and was endorsed at
Faizpur. The resolution of the Faizpur Congress in December,
1936, proclaimed the definite standpoint of the Congress in
contesting the elections :

“ This Congress reiterates its entire rejection of the Govern¬
ment of India Act of 1935 and the Constitution that has been
imposed on India against the declared will of the people of
the country. In the opinion of the Congress any co¬
operation with this Constitution is a betrayal of India’s
struggle for freedom and a strengthening of the hold of
British Imperialism and a further exploitation of the Indian
masses who have already been reduced to direst poverty
under imperialist domination. The Congress therefore
repeats its resolve not to submit to this Constitution or to co¬
operate with it, but to combat it, both inside and outside the
legislatures, so as to end it. The Congress does not and will
not recognise the right of any external power or authority to
dictate the political and economic structure of India, and
every such attempt will be met by organised and un¬
compromising opposition of the Indian people. The Indian
people can only recognise a constitutional structure which
has been framed by them and which is based on the in¬
dependence of India as a Nation and which allows them full
scope for development according to their needs and desires.

“ The Congress stands for a genuine democratic State in
India where political power has been transferred to the
people as a whole and the Government is under their
effective control. Such a State can only come into existence
through a Constituent Assembly, elected by adult suffrage,
and having the power to determine finally the Constitution
of the country. To this end the Congress works in the
country and organises the masses, and this objective must
ever be kept in view by the representatives of the Congress in
the legislatures. . . .

“ The question of acceptance or non-acceptance of office
by Congress members elected to the legislatures under the
new Constitution will be decided by the A.I.C.C. as soon
after the provincial assembly elections as is practicable.”

p 2

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

._n

4il°

On the question of acceptance of office there was a division of
opinion at Faizpur, the majority favouring postponement of
the decision. An amendment of the former Meerut prisoner,
Dange, for the preparation of mass struggle in order to make
possible the realisation of the Constituent Assembly was
defeated by 83 to 45 votes on the Congress Committee, and by
451 to 262 votes in the full Congress. An amendment for
definitive refusal to accept office was defeated on the Congress
Committee by 87 votes to 48.

The National Congress entered the elections as the only
organisation contesting them on an All-India basis. Against
the motley array of communal fractions and mushroom
“ parties ” and groupings hastily created, often with thinly
concealed official encouragement, in the different provinces to
fight the Congress, the National Congress stood out as the
representative of the united national front. This national unity,
the uncompromising proclamation of the aim of complete
national independence, and the record of the years of struggle,
of wholesale arrests and extra-constitutional mass struggle, was
the first factor in the election victory of the Congress.

The Congress Election Manifesto was a document which
placed in the forefront the aim of complete national in¬
dependence and of the Constituent Assembly, condemned
without reservation the imperialist Constitution and explained
the purpose of sending representatives to the legislatures “ not
to co-operate in any way with the Act, but to combat it and
seek to end it ”. At the same time the Election Manifesto did
not rest on the basis of general principles. It set out also a
concrete immediate programme, both of democratic demands
for civil liberties and equal rights, and also a social and
economic programme capable of appealing to the broadest
masses of the people. This was the second factor in the
election victory of the Congress.

The social and economic programme of the Congress in its
Election Manifesto is of especial importance to note as laying
down the lines for the subsequent Congress Ministries. The
effective passages ran :

“ The Congress realises that independence cannot be
achieved through these legislatures, nor can the problems
of poverty and unemployment be effectively tackled by
them. Nevertheless the Congress places its general pro- j

NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR 459

gramme before the people of India so that they may know
what it stands for and what it will try to achieve, whenever it
has the power to do so.

“ At the Karachi session of the Congress in 1 93 1 the general
Congress objective was defined in the Fundamental Rights
resolution. That general definition still holds. The last five
years of developing crisis have however necessitated a further
consideration of the problems of poverty and unemployment
and other economic problems.

“ The most important and urgent problem of the country is
the appalling poverty, unemployment and indebtedness of the
peasantry, fundamentally due to antiquated and repressive
land tenure and revenue systems, and intensified in recent
years by the great slump in prices of agricultural produce. . . .

“ The Congress reiterates its declaration made at Karachi
— that it stands for a reform of the system of land tenure and
revenue and rent, and an equitable adjustment of the burden
on agricultural land, giving immediate relief to the smaller
peasantry by a substantial reduction of agricultural rent and
revenue now paid by them and exempting uneconomic hold¬
ings from payment of rent and revenue.

“ The question of indebtedness requires urgent considera¬
tion and the formulation of a scheme including the declaration
of a moratorium, an enquiry into and scaling down of debts
and the provision for cheap credit facilities by the State.
This relief should extend to the agricultural tenants, peasant
proprietors, small landholders and petty traders.

“ In regard to industrial workers the policy of the Congress
is to secure to them a decent standard of living, hours of work
and conditions of labour in conformity, as far as the economic
conditions in the country permit, with international
standards, suitable machinery for the settlement of disputes
between employers and workmen, protection against the
economic consequences of old age, sickness and unemploy¬
ment and the right of workers to form unions and to strike
for the protection of their interests.

“ The Congress has already declared that it stands for the
removal of all sex disabilities whether legal or social or in any
sphere of public activity. It has expressed itself in favour of
maternity benefits and the protection of women workers.
The women of India have already taken a leading part in

460 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

the freedom struggle, and the Congress looks forward to their
sharing, in an equal measure with the men of India, the
privileges and obligations of a free India.

“ The stress that the Congress has laid on the removal of
untouchability and for the social and economic uplift of the
Harijans and the backward classes is well known. It holds
that they should be equal citizens with others with equal
rights in all civic matters.

“ The encouragement of khadi and village industries has
also long been a principal plant of the Congress programme.
In regard to larger industries, protection should be given,
but the rights of the workers and the producers of raw
materials should be safeguarded, and due regard should be
paid to the interests of village industries.”

This broad democratic programme, with its direct voicing
of the immediate demands of the peasants and industrial
workers, played a big part in mobilising the overwhelming mass
support (far beyond the actual electorate) won by the Congress
in the election campaign.

The election results showed a sweeping victory of the
National Congress to an extent that startled the Government
and official opinion and afforded a powerful demonstration of
the united national will for independence. The Government
had done all in its power to mobilise all possible forces against
the Congress. According to the report of the General Secretary
of the National Congress after the campaign, the Government
actively used its influence to endeavour to defeat the Congress :

“ The Government was wide awake. It knew that the
success of the Congress would augur ill for the new Constitu¬
tion. Despite protestation to the contrary, they throughout
continued exercising their influence directly and indirectly.
They helped in the creation of parties. The National
Agriculturist Party in the United Provinces, the Unionist
Party in the Punjab and other such parties elsewhere had all
the backing of the Provincial Governments.”

(General Secretary’s Report to the Haripura National
Congress, 1938.)

In the United Provinces an official circular was issued by the
Secretary of the Court of Wards:

f ^ —

NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR 461

“ It is essential in the interest of the class which the Court
of Wards especially represents and of the agricultural interest
generally to inflict as crushing a defeat as possible on the
Congress. . . . The Court has therefore decided to support
the candidate who will actively oppose the Congress
candidate. . . . The District Officers are instructed to
engage themselves in the systematic survey of the Province,
constituency by constituency, and prepare themselves in
support of the loyalist candidate in each constituency.”

An official apology had to be issued for this circular ; but there
is no doubt that, if not always with such glaring openness,
every possible influence was brought to bear.

The extent of the Congress victory can be measured from the
results. The significance of the Congress total of 7 1 5 seats is the
more marked when it is remembered that out of the nominal
total of 1,585 seats, there were in reality only 657 seats open to
general competition and not earmarked for some special section.

1 Including Justice Party, 17. * Including Proja Party, 38.

• Including National Agriculturist Party, 16. 4 Mostly Unionist Party.

The Congress won absolute majorities in Madras (also in the
Upper Chamber), Bombay, the United Provinces, Bihar (also
in the Upper Chamber), Central Provinces and Orissa. In

RESULT OF PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS, 1937

Province.

Total

Seats.

Open

“ General ”
Seats.

Con -
gress.

Moslem

League.

Moslem

Inde¬

pendent.

Others.

Madras

215

I l6

159

I I

45 1

175

250

117s

United

Provinces .

228

120

134

37*

175

. EB

156 4

152

— '

■

Central

Provinces .

I 12

108

N.W. Frontier

— ■

—

1.585

657

7i5

108

128

834

462 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

Bengal and Assam it came out as the strongest single party.
The Liberals (i.e., Moderates) were everywhere eclipsed. The
officially favoured “Justice Party” (former “Non-Brahmin
Party ”), once all-powerful in Madras, was wiped out with less
than one-twelfth of the seats. The officially favoured “ National
Agriculturist Party ” fared even worse in the United Provinces.
Only in the Punjab and Sind did the Congress do badly.

The seats won by the Congress were almost entirely the
“ general ” seats. Of the 58 Moslem seats contested, 26 were
won ( 1 5 in the North-west F rontier Province) . A few Labour,
Sikh and Christian seats were also won, 4 Landholder seats
and 3 Commerce and Industry seats.

The significance of the Congress election victory created a
profound impression on imperialist opinion. The London
Times, compelled once and for all to abandon the old pretence
of treating the National Congress as representative of only
an “ insignificant minority ”, wrote :

“ Once again the Indian elections have shown that the
Congress Party alone is organised on more than a Provincial
basis. Its record of successes has been impressive. . . .
Altogether the Congress has done well, and, though it owes
much to its excellent organisation and to the divisions and
lack of organisation of the more Conservative elements,
these factors alone do not explain its numerous victories.

. . . The party’s proposals have been more positive and
constructive than those of most of its opponents. In the
agricultural constituencies, where it has been unexpectedly
successful, it has put forward an extensive programme of
rural reform. . . . The party has won its victories ... on
issues which interested millions of Indian rural voters and
scores of millions who had no votes.”

{The Times, March 9, 1937.)

The last point is of especial importance. The verdict of the
15I million electors who recorded their votes, and the over
whelming majority given to the Congress, in despite of the
utmost shackling and limitations of an indefensible compart
mentalised electoral system, constituted a veritable referendum
of the national will for independence and for social advance
Yet there is no question how far more overwhelming the
results would have been had the broad masses, to whom, as

NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR 463

The Times admits, the programme made its strongest appeal,
been free to vote.

3. Congress Provincial Ministries
Following the elections, the question of the formation of
Ministries in the Provinces where the Congress held a majority
had to be finally decided. In March, 1937, a formula was
at length reached and adopted by the All-India Congress
Committee authorising acceptance of office subject to certain
conditions :

“ The All-India Congress Committee authorises and per¬
mits acceptance of offices in the Provinces where Congress
commands a majority in the legislature, provided that
ministership shall not be accepted unless the leader of the
Congress Party in the legislature is satisfied and able to
state publicly that the Governor will not use his special
powers of interference or set aside the office of Ministers in
regard to their constitutional activities.”

This formula had been elaborated by Gandhi and was adopted
by 127 votes to 70. The majority of the socialists and left-
wing generally opposed acceptance of office, seeing in it a
concession to co-operation with imperialism and fearing it
would represent an alternative to the path of mass struggle.
Their amendment against acceptance of office was rejected
by 135 votes to 78. This opposition was largely actuated by
lack of confidence in the moderate constitutionalist elements
of the leadership who, it was feared, would turn the policy
into one of increasing compromise with imperialism.

Three months’ delay followed after the decision in favour of
conditional acceptance of office before the Congress Ministries
were inaugurated. The Congress stood out for its demand
that a prior declaration must be made by the Government
that the special powers of the Governors would not be used
in such a way as to hamper the constitutional activities of the
Ministries. Meanwhile on April 1 , All Fools’ Day (what wag
in the offices of imperialism selected this date for the purpose
is unrecorded), the new Constitution was inaugurated. It
was met by a universal hartal of impressive completeness.
Since negotiations between the Congress and the authorities
were still at a deadlock, interim Ministries without majorities

464 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

were constituted. The deadlock was finally resolved after
the Viceroy’s declaration on June 22 that all Governors would
be anxious “ not merely not to provoke conflicts with their
Ministers to whatever party their Ministers belong, but to
leave nothing undone to avoid or resolve such conflicts On
this understanding the Congress accepted office, although
making clear in the final resolution of the Working Com¬
mittee that the declarations of the Viceroy and others “ though
they exhibit a desire to make an approach to the Congress
demand, fall short of the assurances demanded in terms of
the A.I.C.C. resolution

In July, 1937, Congress Ministries were formed in the six
Provinces where the Congress held absolute majorities in the
Lower House : Bombay, Madras, United Provinces, Bihar,
Central Provinces and Orissa. Soon after, the access of a
group of eight non-Congress members in the North-west
Frontier Province to co-operation with the Congress and
acceptance of Congress discipline (in a signed declaration)
gave the Congress an absolute majority there also, leading to
the formation of a Congress Ministry. Thus Congress Minis¬
tries were established in seven of the eleven Provinces of

British India, with an aggregate population of close on 160
millions, or three-fifths of the population of British India, and
over two-fifths of the total population of India. Congress
Coalition governments were later formed in Assam and Sind.

The Congress Provincial Ministries were in office for over
two years until, with the war crisis and the rupture with the
Central Government, they resigned in November 1939. The
character of their record during these two years provoked sharp
and increasing controversy within the national movement.

The Congress Ministries in the Provinces were not in any
modem parliamentary sense Governments. Gandhi, in an
article in the Harijan in August, 1938, made clear the extreme
limitations of their powers and their consequent special role
as instruments in the real struggle for liberation :

“ Democratic Britain has set up an ingenious system in
India which, when you look at it in its nakedness, is nothing
but a highly organised military control. It is not less so
under the present Government of India Act. The Ministers
are mere puppets so far as the real control is concerned.
The Collectors and Police may at a mere command from

NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR 465

the Governors unseat the Ministers, arrest them and put
them in a lock-up. Hence it is that I have suggested that
the Congress has entered upon office, not to work the Act
in the manner expected by the framers, but in a manner so
as to hasten the day of substituting it by a genuine Act of
India’s own making.”

Such a policy could, however, only be carried out by a
revolutionary leadership. The dominant moderate leadership
in control of the Ministries carried out in fact a very different
policy. In practice the Congress Ministries settled down to
“ working the Act in the manner expected by the framers ” ;
and the representatives of imperialism did not conceal their
satisfaction at the “ success ” of the experiment. Certain
limited achievements, especially in the earlier period, were
recorded, in the sphere of civil liberties, agrarian legislation
and some attempts at social, educational and health reforms.
These reforms did not and could not touch the main bases of
imperialist power and exploitation or the main causes of the
poverty of the masses. As the price of these reforms, the
Congress Ministries remaining in office acted more and more
openly as organs of imperialist administration against the
masses of the people.

The most important achievement of the Congress Ministries
was in the sphere of civil liberties. The advance here was
especially marked in the earlier period. Step by step, nearly
all political prisoners were released. This extended to
prisoners still suffering sentence for actions as far back as
Chauri Chaura in 1922 and the Moplah rising of 1921.
The Garhwali riflemen and those of the Meerut prisoners
still undergoing sentence were also released. Bans on scores
of political organisations were removed (but the ban on the
Communist Party, imposed by the Central Government,
remained). 'Restrictions on the movement of political
workers were lifted. Securities taken from newspapers were
returned, and blacklists of newspapers to be excluded from
government printing or advertising on account of their political
opinions were cancelled. The partial extension of freedom of
press and publication in the Congress Provinces was reflected
in an enormous growth of literature of political enlightenment.

Nevertheless, the role of the Congress Ministries as organs
of the police administration of imperialism was revealed from

466

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

an early date. Already in the first few months a shock was
created by the sentence of a leading Congress Socialist under
the Madras Government to six months’ imprisonment for
sedition. Cases occurred of the employment of the hated
Section 124A (against seditious propaganda) and Section 144
(for the prohibition of meetings) of the Penal Code — the
very measures of repression which the Congress had previously
denounced in unmeasured terms. Sharp controversy over
these developments followed within the Congress organs.
The doctrine of “ non-violence ”, with its usual amazing
elasticity, was extended to include police action and im¬
prisonment against those considered guilty of “ propaganda
of violence ” — a term which was in fact used in a very free-
and-easy manner to cover opinions hostile to the existing
regime and advocating the normal forms of mass struggle.
Behind this controversy lay the growing alarm of the upper-
class and moderate elements in the Congress against the
rapid advance of the working-class and peasant movement.

In the social and economic field the new Ministries attempted
a very limited programme. They did not attempt to tackle the
heavy obstacles represented by the existing land system and the
economic regime under imperialism. They acted with great con¬
sideration for the landlord and moneyed elements which had
influence with the moderate wing of the Congress leadership.

Certain immediate measures of legislation were carried
out, especially in relation to the peasants. On the urgent
question of debt, measures were adopted for cancelling
a proportion of old arrears, as in the Madras Agriculturists’
Debt Relief Act, for an immediate moratorium, as in the
United Provinces and Bombay, for scaling down of debts and
for limitation of the rate of interest, usually to a figure of
6-g per cent. Tenancy legislation was carried, aimed to
afford a certain degree of protection against .ejectment, to
cancel enhancements of rent, to remove irregular additional
dues and charges and to limit interest on arrears of rent. In
some cases remission of land revenue were granted. The
40,000 Dublas or tied serfs in Bombay were liberated.

The extent of the agrarian legislation, and the scope
it covered, was very limited ; it had to be pressed by
very strong agitation and demonstrations of the peasants;
and it encountered obstinate opposition of the landlords, who

NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR 467

used their influence to whittle it down. The actual debt
reductions achieved were a very small proportion of the total
volume of debt. The tenancy legislation only assisted a
minority of tenants (thus the Bombay Tenancy Bill, according
to the statement attached to the Bill, was only expected to
affect 4 per cent, of the tenants), and did not touch the main
burdens of rent. The agricultural labourers were unaffected ;
though numbering 42 per cent, of the population in Madras,
they were excluded from the Agriculturists’ Debt Relief Act.
These limitations were conspicuous in all the agrarian legis¬
lation, and emphasised the fact that, while small immediate
concessions could be won in this way, any more serious relief
and wider approach would necessarily require far more radical
measures. Peasant agitation in Bihar, Orissa and the United
Provinces was widespread owing to dissatisfaction with the
weakness of the Minister in failing to withstand the opposition
of the landlords, and the so-called “ Congress-Zemindar
Pact ” in Bihar was denounced. In general, the tenancy
legislation was of very limited effectiveness and aimed at
protecting the larger peasant cultivator rather than the sub¬
tenant and dispossessed agriculturist.

On the side of the industrial working class, the formation
of the Congress Ministries encouraged a rapid advance of
activity, wage demands and trade-union organisation. The
total of strikes in 1937 rose to 9 million working days, or more
than the previous three years combined and the highest since
1929, the number of workers involved being 647,000, or the
highest on record. The Congress Ministries, while seeking to
promote industrial conciliation, and utilising the Trades
Disputes Act for this purpose, exercised their influence to
improve the conditions of the workers and secure wage
increases. The Bombay Textile Labour Enquiry Committee
granted a wage increase for the mill-workers, and its finding
was carried out, in the face of some protest from the mill-
owners. The United Provinces Congress Government assisted
the settlement of the Cawnpore strike on the basis of an
increase in wages and the recognition of the union; and
when the owners sought to oppose the findings in 1938, the
unity of the Congress and the workers secured a victory.

Sharp issues arose in relation to the strike movement, the
question of the right to strike and trade-union recognition.

468 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

In Madras intervention by the Government was constantly
directed against the workers in cases of disputes. Acute
difficulties arose with the Bombay Government with reference
to the use of Section 144 (prohibiting processions, or meetings
of more than five persons) in Sholapur, and other administra¬
tive measures against the strike movement and freedom of
working-class activity, and rose to a sharp point over the
Bombay Industrial Disputes Bill in the latter part of 1938.
This Bill seriously limited the right to strike by imposing a
four months’ interim period for the operation of conciliation
machinery, during which strikes were illegal ; it also imposed
complicated regulations for the registration of unions in a
way that could favour company unions or unions favoured
by the employers. Some modifications were made in the
Bill in response to trade-union representations ; but the main
principles remained, and the Bombay Provincial Trade Union
Congress Committee called a protest strike against it on
November 7. This protest strike, which won a powerful
response, was met with police action, leading to casualties
and one death.

In the sphere of social reform the Congress Ministries con¬
centrated their main attentions on the development of pro¬
hibition of drink and drugs on an extending local basis (the
sale of drinks and drugs was promoted by the imperialist
Government, through agencies under its control, as a source
of revenue; and prohibition meant a heavy financial loss).
Attempts were also made to develop an educational reform
programme ; but any serious educational programme
required finance, and finance was lacking. Some beginnings
of social legislation were attempted, as in the provision for
maternity benefit for women workers in factories in the
United Provinces. Within the limits of finance, measures of
public hygiene were initiated, especially in the villages for
the extension of rural water supply and sanitation.

The all-pervading problem confronting and shackling the
work of the Congress Ministries at every turn, and in fact
revealing their real impotence under the control of im¬
perialism, was the problem of finance. The limitations
imposed by lack of finance may be seen when examining the
budgets of the Provincial Governments. It will be seen how
little change was actually accomplished.

NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR 469

EXPENDITURE ON EDUCATION
(in thousands of rupees)

1937-38.

1938-39-

United Provinces
Bombay . '
Madras .

EXPENDITURE ON PUBLIC HEALTH
(in thousands of rupees)

* 937-38 .

*938-39-

United Provinces

2,252

2.456

Bombay ....

2,232

3. >59

Madras ....

4.40 7

3.132

(r 937-38 actual expenditure; 1938-39 revised estimate; 1939-40 budget
estimate.)

The experience of the formation and early period of the
Congress Provincial Ministries ®led, not so much by the
actions of the Ministries as by the hopes aroused and impetus
given, to an enormous advance of the national movement, of
confidence and mass awakening. But the negative side of
the account was heavy. The experience of the two years
of Congress Ministries demonstrated with growing acuteness
the dangers implicit in entanglement in imperialist ad¬
ministration under a leadership already inclined to com¬
promise. The dominant moderate leadership in effective
control of the Congress machinery and of the Ministries was
in practice developing to increasing co-operation with im¬
perialism, was acting more and more openly in the interests
of the upper-class landlords and industrialists, and was showing
an increasingly marked hostility to all militant expression
and forms of mass struggle. As the practical experience of
the Ministries developed, discontent grew. It became more
and more obvious that the decisive tasks of the national
struggle for independence were in front and could not be
solved through the machinery of the Congress Ministries.
Hence a new crisis of the national movement began to
develop.

470

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

4. The Federal Constitution and Developing Crisis

The Haripura National Congress in February, 1938, defined
the policy of the Congress in relation to the Federal section
of the Constitution and the moves developing to bring it into
force. The resolution unanimously adopted declared :

“ The Congress has rejected the new Constitution and
declared that a Constitution for India which can be accepted
by the people must be based on independence and can only
be framed by the people themselves by means of a Con¬
stituent Assembly without interference by any foreign
authority. Adhering to this policy of rejection, the Con¬
gress has, however, permitted the formation in provinces of
Congress Ministries with a view to strengthen the nation in
its struggle for independence. In regard to the proposed
Federation, no such considerations apply even provisionally
or for a period, and the imposition of this Federation will
do grave injury to India and tighten the bonds which hold
her in subjection to imperialist domination. This scheme
of Federation excludes from the sphere of responsibility
vital functions of government. . . .

“ The Congress, therefore, reiterates its condemnation of
the proposed Federal scheme and calls upon the Provincial
and Local Congress Committees and the people generally,
as well as the Provincial governments and Ministries, to
prevent its inauguration. In the event of an attempt being
made to impose it despite the declared will of the people,
such an attempt must be combatted in every way, and the
Provincial Governments and Ministries must refuse to co¬
operate with it-. In case such a contingency arises the All-
India Congress Committee is authorised and directed to
determine the line of action to be pursued in this regard.” .
It will be seen that the rejection of the Federal section of
the Constitution in this resolution was absolute, and did not
leave the door open to negotiations. This absolute rejection
was based on the viewpoint that the Federal provisions
represent, not a possible step on the path to self-government,
but a strengthening of the hold of imperialism.

What was to be the positive policy and line of action of the
Congress in the event of imperialism endeavouring to impose
the Federal Constitution? On this crucial question, raising

NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR 47I

the whole issue of the new stage of struggle and the forms of
action, no specific answer, other than the answer in principle,
was yet given by the Haripura Congress.

In Government circles the view was held that this absolute
rejection was a preliminary gesture, and would give way
eventually to some form of acceptance, as in the case of the
Provinces. Although this estimate completely undervalued
the strength of national opposition, it was not without a basis,
in view of the lack of preparations for the alternative of a
new and heavy struggle, and in view of the known tendencies
of the moderate elements in the dominant leadership to
consider the possibilities of a bargain on the basis of
modifications in the terms or practical working of the Act.

During 1938 various conversations took place between
prominent representatives of imperialism and individual Con¬
gress leaders, and rumours began to be spread that a com¬
promise was in prospect. There was no basis in any official
declarations for such rumours. It was true, however, that
individual right-wing leaders had made statements which
implied a possible compromise on the basis of a modified
Federal Constitution; and many left-wing elements, already
alarmed at the “ drift to constitutionalism ”, and knowing
that the right wing was dominant in the “ High Command ”,
feared that, despite brave words, a surrender would follow.

In reality the deeper issue behind these controversies lay
in the question of the mass basis of the Congress and its
relation to the developing mass struggle of the workers and
peasants. Only in proportion as the Congress deepened and
strengthened its mass basis and its organic relation to the
mass struggle could it develop the strength to be capable of
defeating Federation and imposing its own terms on im¬
perialism. The alarm expressed by the dominant elements
of the leadership with regard to the rapid advance of the
workers’ and peasants’ movement, the deprecation of class
struggle as a violation of “ non-violence ”, and increasing
readiness to use or defend police coercive measures against
strikes and unrest, meant inevitably that they were travelling
along a path which led to increasing compromise with
imperialism.

It was in this situation that Subhas Chandra Bose, who had
been nominated President the previous year without a contest,.

472 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

decided to contest the Congress Presidential election in 1939
for re-election, on the basis of posing the political issue of
launching a nation-wide struggle against Federation and
resisting the tendencies, which he described as existing in the
right-wing leadership, towards compromise. For the first
time the presidential election was contested. The key im¬
portance of the contest lay in the fact that the Working
Committee, or ruling organ of the Congress, is not elected,
but nominated by the President; thus the election of the
President is the constitutional opportunity for the voice of
the membership to be expressed with regard to the character
of the leadership of the Congress. The opposing candidate
to Bose was supported by Gandhi and the majority of the
members of the old Working Committee. Bose was supported
by the Left Nationalists, Socialists and Communists. In the
event Bose was elected by 1,575 to 1,376 votes.

The election of Bose, in the face of the opposition of the
official machine, led to a sharp inner crisis. In fact the
result of the personal election of a President, while having its

importance as a barometer of feelings among the rank and
file, could by no means be regarded as a definitive political
judgement or indication of an effective left majority in the
membership. The subsequent proceedings at Tripuri were
to prove this. But the result did undoubtedly indicate the
growing movement of opinion to the left. Gandhi himself
treated the result as a personal defeat and declared: “ It is
plain to me that the delegates do not approve of the principles
and policy for which I stand.” The Times of India recorded
its verdict: “ Mr. Bose’s election does represent a Congress
trend to the left.” The Bombay Chronicle commented : “ The
election clearly indicates a trend towards radicalism and mass
assertiveness.” It is noticeable that in the elections to the
Bombay Provincial Congress Committee Communists were
prominently returned, the former Meerut prisoner, Adhikari,
receiving the highest number of votes secured by any candidate
in the city; while in the Bombay municipal elections which
followed the four Communist candidates who stood topped
the polls.

This outcome of the presidential election was a disappoint¬
ment to Gandhi and the dominant moderate leadership, who
did not conceal their discontent with the result. Gandhi

NATIONAL STRUGGLE ON THE EVE OF THE WAR 473

issued a statement accusing the Congress of becoming “ a
corrupt organisation 51 with “ bogus members ”, and held
out the threat that the right wing, if they disapproved of the
policy of the majority, might leave the Congress : “ Those
who, being Congress-minded, remain outside it by design,
represent it most. Those, therefore, who feel uncomfortable
in being in the Congress may come out.”

Twelve of the fifteen members of the Working Committee
resigned, in order, as they explained, to leave a free field for
Bose, and also on the grounds that they felt that in his ‘
election campaign he had cast aspersions on their bona fides.
Jawaharlal Nehru also resigned from the Working Committee,
though with a separate statement explaining his special view¬
point (more fully explained in the booklet issued by him in
connection with the crisis, entitled “Where Are We? ”).

The Tripuri session of the National Congress, which met
in March, 1939, was able to maintain the unity of organisation
of the Congress, but was not able to resolve the controversy.
The main resolution on the “ National Demand ” reaffirmed
the Congress declaration of uncompromising opposition to
the Federal part of the Government of India Act and deter¬
mination to resists its imposition.

On the division of leadership which had arisen a resolution
moved by the supporters of Gandhi was finally carried after
sharp controversy. This resolution reaffirmed confidence in
the leadership and policies of Gandhi and required the
President to nominate his Working Committee in accordance
with the wishes of Gandhi. It thus established in effect a
personal dictatorship of Gandhi, who was not a member of
the Congress. This resolution was carried in the Subjects
Committee by qi8 to 135 votes and was adopted by the
Congress.

Experience after the Tripuri Congress showed that no
solution of the controversy had in fact been reached. Negotia¬
tions between Bose and Gandhi regarding the composition of
the Working Committee to be nominated ended in a break¬
down. In April, 1939, Bose resigned the presidency, and a
new president, Rajendra Prasad, was elected by the All-India
Congress Committee. Bose proceeded to organise the opposi¬
tion elements supporting him in a new association within the
Congress, the “ Forward Bloc ”, the aim of which was

THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

474

declared to be to “ rally radical and anti-imperialist elements
within the Congress ”.

The Forward Bloc did not make any fundamental criticism
of the constitution, creed, policy and programme of the
Congress, but expressed dissatisfaction with the existing leader¬
ship and called for preparations for active struggle for inde¬
pendence and against Federal Status. In the summer of 1939
the controversy reached a sharper phase. A meeting of the
All-India Congress Committee adopted resolutions to tighten
up the constitution of the Congress, to restrict the powers of
the Congress Provincial Committees in relation to the actions
of Congress Ministries and to prohibit Congressmen from
leading movements of passive resistance without sanction of
the appropriate Congress Committees. The last of these
resolutions was intended to check the growing independence
of the workers’ and peasants’ movements from the control of
the Congress, and was widely interpreted as a restriction on
the day-to-day struggles of the workers and peasants. In
protest against this resolution, Bose and the “ Left Con¬
solidation Committee ”, representing a coalition of opposition
elements, called public demonstrations on July 9. This action
represented an infringement of Congress discipline, and Bose
was thereon disqualified from the presidency of the Bengal
Congress Committee and from holding office in the Congress
for a period of three years.

The increasing sharpness of these divisions within the Con¬
gress was a sign of the growing crisis in the country. It was
increasingly evident that the possibilities of advance through
the utilisation of the Congress Ministries had reached ex¬
haustion and that a major struggle was impending between
imperialism and the National Movement. While the divisions
within the upper Congress leadership, which were mixed with
personal issues, did not yet represent a clear political align¬
ment, there was no question of the ferment which was
developing in the Congress membership and in the masses of
the people. As between the dominant Gandhist leadership
and the “ Forward Bloc ” in the Congress, there was still no
basic division on the programme, creed and policy of the
Congress. The “ Forward Bloc ”, in Bose’s words, “ while
cherishing the highest respect for Mr. Gandhi’s personality
and his political doctrine of non-violent non-co-operation will

INDIA IN WORLD POLITICS 475

not, however, necessarily have confidence in the present High
Command of the Congress The basic programme and
leadership of the mass movement had still to develop. But
the facts showed that the conditions were ripening for an
advance to a new stage in the national movement.

This was the situation when the outbreak of war at once
brought to a head the gathering conflict between imperialism
and the national movement and raised new issues.

Chapter XVII : INDIA IN WORLD
POLITICS

“ The geographical position of India will more and more push her into
the forefront of international politics.” — Lord Curzon, speech to the India
Council, March 23, 1905.

Until the last few years the question of India’s role in
world politics might have appeared primarily a question of
British strategy and policy. The attention of the national
movement was concentrated, and naturally concentrated, on
the struggle within India. Until India was free, it appeared
logical to ask, how could the Indian people aspire to play any
independent role in world politics?

All this has changed during the last few years under the
stress of the new world situation. Questions of foreign policy
have come into the forefront within the national movement.

This new development is partly the reflection of the over¬
powering impact of the gathering world issues and world con¬
flict, which to-day more and more governs the internal political
situation in every country. It is also the reflection of the
growing strength and maturity of the national movement,
the sense of closeness to future liberation, and the consequent
sense of responsibility for the entire future policy of the
country. The outcome of this development is of profound
importance, not only for the situation in India, but for the
whole world situation.

476 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

i. The Strategic Significance of India for British World

Policy

In the broadest sense the question of India under British
rule has always been a world political question, and a major
question of world politics.

The concentration of British world strategy around the pivot
of the domination of India can be traced with increasing clear¬
ness through the past two centuries. The eighteenth-century
wars of Britain and France revolved primarily, not so much
around the kaleidoscope of the shifting European constella¬
tions which appeared as their immediate cause, but around
the struggle for the New World and for the domination of
India. The loss of the United States increased the importance
of India. When Napoleon directed his expeditions to Egypt
and the Npar East, he had before him visions of the advance
to India. Through the nineteenth century Russia appeared
as the bogey extending ever farther over Asia and threatening
India. When Britain abandoned isolation at the beginning
of the twentieth century, the first step in the abandonment of
isolation was the alliance with Japan, and the revised Anglo-
Japanese Treaty, when it was renewed, contained the formula
for Japanese assistance in maintaining British domination in
India. The conflict with Germany turned especially on the
control of the Middle East, opening up the way to India.

India has throughout provided the inexhaustible reservoir
for Britain, alike of material and of human resources, not only
for its own conquest, but for the whole policy of Asiatic ex¬
pansion. A great part of the public debt of India has been
built up on this basis through wars conducted for the aims of
British policy in other Asiatic countries, or even beyond the
confines of Asia, and charged to India. A British military
officer wrote in 1 859 :

“ Most of our Asiatic wars with countries beyond the
limits of our Empire have been carried on by means of the
military and monetary resources of the Government of
India, though the objects of those wars were, in some in¬
stances, purely British, and in others but remotely connected
with the interests of India.”

(Major Wingate, “ Our Financial Relations with
India ”, 1859, p. 17.)

INDIA IN WORLD POLITICS 477

Wars were conducted on this basis in Afghanistan, Burma, Siam,
China, Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt and Abyssinia.

The limitless calculations and aspirations of the British
military authorities, during the nineteenth-century period of
extending power, to achieve world dominion on the basis of
India were illustrated in the outburst of Sir Charles Napier,
who was Commander-in-Chief under Lord Dalhousie before
the Revolt of 1857 :

“ Would that I were King of India ! I would make Mos¬
cow and Pekin shake. . . . The five rivers and the Punjab,
the Indus and Sind, the Red Sea and Malta, what a chain
of lands and waters to attach England to India ! Were I
King of England, I would, from the palace of Delhi, thrust
forth a clenched fist in the teeth of Russia and France.
England’s fleet should be all in all in the West, and the
Indian Army all in all in the East.”

The size of the Indian Army and the enormous scale of ex¬
penditure upon it have been largely governed, not only by the
needs of holding in subjection the people of India, but by the cal¬
culations of its use for wars and expansion beyond the frontiers
of India. In 1885 Sir Courtenay Ilbert, of the Viceroy’s
Council, explained in a minute of dissent to the existing policy :

“ A standing army which is larger than necessary for
home requirements will be a temptation as an almost irre¬
sistible weapon of offence beyond the frontier.”

(Sir Courtenay Ilbert, minute of dissent, August 14, 1 885.)
This prophecy was fulfilled in the conquest and annexation
of Burma which followed immediately after. Then came the
Chitral Expedition of 1895, the inglorious campaign of Tirah,
the annexation of the North-west Frontier regions under
Curzon in 1900 and the Tibet Expedition of 1904.

In the discussions on the budget of 1904-5 Sir E. Ellis
defended the policy of expansion against the criticisms of the
Indian national leader, Gokhale:

“ Are we to be content to hide ourselves behind our moun¬
tain barriers under the foolish impression that we should be
safe, whilst the absorption of Asiatic Kingdoms is steadily in
progress. ... It is, I think, undoubted that the Indian
Army in the future must be the main factor in the main¬
tenance of the balance of power in Asia. It is impossible

478 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

to regard it any longer as a local militia for purely local
defence and maintenance of order.”

Lord Curzon was even more explicit in his statement in rela¬
tion to the same discussion :

“ India is like a fortress with the vast moat of the sea on
two of her faces and with mountains for her walls on the
remainder. But beyond these walls which are sometimes
of by no means insuperable height and admit of being
easily penetrated, extends a glacis of varying breadth and
dimension. We do not want to occupy it, but we also
cannot afford to see it occupied by our foes. We are quite
content to let it remain in the hands of our allies and
friends ; but if rival and unfriendly influences creep up to
it and lodge themselves right under our walls, we are com¬
pelled to intervene because a danger would thereby grow
up that might one day menace our security. This is the
secret of the whole position in Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan,
Tibet and as far eastwards as Siam.”

The conception of Lord Curzon, whose governing influence
may be traced in the whole subsequent policy down to the
present day, can be found more fully expounded in his book
“ Problems of the Far East ” :

“ The Indian Empire is in the strategic centre of the
third most important portion of the globe. . . . But her
central and commanding position is nowhere better seen
than in the political influence which she exercises over the
destinies of her neighbours near and far, and the extent
to which their fortunes revolve upon an Indian axis.”

(Rt. Hon. G. N. Curzon, “ Problems of the Far East ”,
1894, pp. 9-10.)

The Army in India Committee in 1913 laid down that India
was “ not called upon to maintain troops for the specific
purpose of placing them at the disposal of the Home Govern¬
ment for wars outside the Indian sphere, although — -as has
happened in the past — she may lend such troops if they arc
otherwise available

The war of 1914-18 illustrated to the full this use of India.
Nearly 1 million troops, of whom over half a million were
combatants, were drafted overseas to France, East Africa,
Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc., while hundreds of millions of

INDIA IN WORLD POLITICS

479

pounds were extracted from India. India was made the base
for the conquest of the new Middle Eastern Empire, although
the subsequent revival of Turkey and the strength of Ibn
Saudi Arabia diminished the completeness of the victory.

The Esher Committee Report of 1920 laid down in far
more uncompromising terms than the 1913 Army in India
Committee the official conception of the Indian Army as
the weapon of the British Empire for use outside India :

“ We cannot consider the administration of the Army in
India otherwise than as part of the total armed forces of
the Empire.”

In accordance with this principle, the Army in India is
organised to-day in three categories, as laid down by Lord
Rawlinson, Commander-in-Chief after the last war, in 1921,
and subsequently elaborated in the official handbook “ The
Army in India and its Evolution ”, published in 1924:

(1) the Field Army, for major war outside India ;

(2) the Covering Troops, for frontier warfare, and, in
the event of major war, to form a screen behind which
mobilisation can proceed undisturbed ;

(3) Internal Security Troops, for garrison purposes
within India.

The Field Army consists of four Divisions and four (now
mechanised) Cavalry Brigades, and is described as India’s
striking force in a major war.

The extent to which the weight of Empire military burdens
was increasingly thrown on India in the post-1918 period was
shown in the proportionate figures of military expenditure.
The following table shows the proportionate increase in
military expenditure in Britain, India and the Dominions
between 1913 and 1938:

MILITARY EXPENDITURE, 1913-28
(in £ millions)

1928.

Increase,
per cent.

Great Britain .

115

India ....

Dominions

Total

108

171

( Economist Armaments Supplement, October 19, 1929.)

480 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

The burden on India (which had no say in the matter) had
been doubled, while that on Great Britain had been increased
by less than half, and that on the Dominions by one-third.
Military expenditure before the war of 1914 accounted for
two-fifths of the budget: 41 per cent, in 1891-92 and 42-6
per cent, in 1913-14. It rose from the pre-1914 average of
300 million rupees to 874 million in the inflated prices of
1920-21, or 51 per cent, of the budget; was reduced, with
lowered prices and economies, to 560 million by 1925-26, or
39 per cent. ; by 1928-29 had climbed again to 45 per cent.
In 1936-37 it totalled, according to the official estimate, 54 per
cent, of the Central Budget and 29 per cent, of the combined
Central and Provincial Budgets.

The strategic importance of India to Britain has increased
in the period since the last war. The new Middle Eastern
Empire and system of influence has been built up on the
basis of India. The concentration on the Cape route, with
the new naval base of Simonstown, to balance the possible
loss of effective control of the Mediterranean, and on the
naval base of Singapore to command the gateway from the
Pacific into the Indian Ocean, alike reflect the central con¬
centration on the control of India and of the routes to India
as the pivot of the Empire. As the passage through the Medi¬
terranean and the Suez Canal becomes increasingly precarious,
the imperial air line which unites Britain with Australia
through Baghdad, Karachi, Calcutta and Singapore, and with
the Far East through India and Siam, becomes increasingly
important as the life-line of the Empire. As Japan extends
its hold on the Pacific, and on the coast and riverways of China,
the land route through Burma assumes new importance.

There is reason to believe that India has also been given a
prominent part to play in the British anti-Soviet calculations
and preparations. In this connection the statement of the
Commander-in-Ghief in India, Sir Philip Chetwode, in 1936
is worth noting :

“ The Indian frontier is within touch of the Russian
menace, which advances and recedes according to the state
of the rest of the world and Russian politics, but is always
there. No one would imagine now that there is likely to be
a cause of war between the British Empire and Russia, but
as we have seen in the last year, international situations alter

INDIA IN WORLD POLITICS

481

in great rapidity, and the Russians have the biggest and
possibly the best equipped army and air force in the world.”

(Field-Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode, “ Some Aspects
of the Defence of India ”, Journal of the East India
Association, July, 1936, p. 162.)

By sea the Indian Navy has been reorganised since 1928 on
a combatant basis. Sir Philip Chetwode explained that “the
coastal defence of India is every day becoming of more import¬
ance ”. He went on to stress the role of the armed forces in
India for the defence of the Empire “ in case of a great war ” :

“ The third duty that the armed forces in India may be
called upon to perform is that of assisting the remainder of
the Empire in case of a great war, or in case of minor occur¬
rences where the position of India enables them to go to
the Empire’s assistance more quickly than any other forces.
There is, for instance, the defence of Aden, which is the
gate of India’s commerce with the West ; also the defence
of the oilfields in the Persian Gulf on which India largely
depends. Again we have to provide for the defence of
Burma and Singapore, through which India receives much
oil and other commodities, and especially in the case of
Singapore which is becoming vital to the safety of the
Empire and India in particular.” ( Ibid ., p. 164.)

All these strategic considerations have been brought to the
forefront with the conditions of the present war and the
possibilities of its further extension.

2. The Significance of India for British Internal Politics

Closely intertwined with this strategic significance of India
for Britain is the social-political significance of the control
and exploitation of India for the whole structure and character
of internal social and political relations in Britain. We
have already traced the extent to which capitalist economy in
Britain has been built up, stage by stage, on the special
exploitation of India, through the initial period of plunder in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which helped to
make possible the primary accumulation of capital for the
Industrial Revolution, through the development of India
in the nineteenth century as the main market for machine
manufactures and source of raw materials, into the subsequent
Q.

482 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

further development of India as a field of capital exports. This
close economic connection has inevitably had its reaction, not 1
only on the structure of economy in Britain, but also on the
corresponding structure of social and political organisation
and on the whole course of politics in Britain.

Seeley, in his “ Expansion of England ”, threw out the
remark, in an expansive moment himself, that “ every
historical student knows that it was the incubus of the Empire
which destroyed liberty at Rome ”, The remark cuts deeper
and reaches to more far-reaching conclusions than he was
prepared to recognise. The conflict between empire and
democracy runs like a continuous thread through the modern I
history of England.

From the conquest of India in the middle of the eighteenth
century this strand of the direct influence of empire on British 1
internal politics can be continuously traced. The influence I
of the “ nabobs ” on the corruption of eighteenth-century
politics and of the pre-Reform Parliament is notorious. The j
Reform Ministry of Fox in 1783 was defeated over India, and
gave place to the long rule of reaction, the tenacious counter- 1
revolutionary hostility to the French Revolution and the
postponement of democratic reform in England. When the I

Reform Bill of 1832 replaced the old ascendancy by the
nineteenth-century domination of Lancashire, it was the role
of Lancashire in the exploitation of India that played no small
part in frustrating the aspirations of nineteenth-century
Liberalism and guiding it along the path which led to its out¬
come in Liberal Imperialism. From the camp of the Anglo- j
Indian rulers, trained in the methods of despotic domination,
have been continuously recruited the forces of reaction in
British internal politics, from the days of a Wellington to the
days of a Curzon and a Lloyd. In the rifts and currents
within Conservatism the close connection between the Anglo-
Indians and the Die-Hards can be continuously traced.

Not only within the ranks of the ruling class, but within the
ranks of the working class this same influence of empire holds
the main responsibility for the perversion and distortion of the
British Labour Movement. Therefore the fresh and powerful
current of Chartism, leading the world working class in the
advance of open class struggle for class liberation, and openly
espousing the cause of the colonial peoples, gave place to the

_ .. X .

INDIA IN WORLD POLITICS

483

ignominious nineteenth-century compromise of the upper
sections of the working class following docilely at the tails of
their masters. Marx and Engels again and again pointed out
that the root of this corruption and degradation lay in the
sharing of the spoils of world colonial exploitation, the main
part of which was India. Therefore also, when the life-
giving breath of Socialism returned to awaken anew the British
working class, the advance was in great part weakened,
divided and distorted by the corroding influence of Labour
Imperialism, the price of which had to be paid in the war of
1914 and again in the present war. The shameful record of
the official Labour Party over India, not only of the two Labour
Governments suppressing with all the methods of Tsarism a
democratic movement, but also of Labour in opposition
establishing again and again a united front with Conservatism
in office against the Indian people, has shown how deep this
cancer, which holds back the British working class from free¬
dom, still runs in the veins of the dominant sections of the
Labour movement. At the Labour Party Conference at
Bournemouth in 1937, when a resolution was placed on the
agenda for the right of self-determination for India through a
Constituent Assembly — an elementary democratic claim which
could not be opposed — those in control saw to it that this resolu¬
tion was never reached and could not be submitted to a vote.

Even to-day, when the basis of this domination is crumbling
and the consequent apparent gains to a section of the workers
are vanishing, the statesmen of imperialism still try to hold out
the profits of empire as indispensable to the interests of the
British working class and the British people. Thus Churchill :

“ There are fifteen million more people here than can
exist without our enormous external connections, without
our export trade which is now halved, without our shipping
which is so largely paralysed, without the income of our
foreign investments, which are taxed to sustain our social
services. I suppose that two millions or three millions in
these islands get their livelihood from beneficent services
mutually interchanged between us and India.”

(Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons,
March 29, 1933.)

“ India has quite a lot to do with the wage earners of

484 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

Britain. The Lancashire cotton operatives have found that
out all right. One hundred thousand of them are on the
dole already; and if we lose India, if we had the same
treatment from a Home Rule India as we have had to our
sorrow from a Home Rule Ireland, it would be more like
two million breadwinners in this country who would be
tramping the streets and queuing up at the Labour Ex¬
changes.”

(Winston Churchill, broadcast on India, January 29,

1 935-)

The argument is as false in practice as it is vicious in
principle. For the sake of the crumbs of a dwindling and
doomed monopoly the British workers are to forego their
birthright to freedom and the possession of the full fruits of
their labour, and to ally themselves with their masters against
the subject peoples. The outcome of this policy is not pros¬
perity, but ruin. This has been proved in hard practice in the
present period. Freedom has not been granted to India; but
this has not prevented the 2 million breadwinners in Britain
queuing up at the Labour Exchanges. The old nineteenth-
century monopoly is doomed and can never be recovered. To
seek to unite with the exploiters in order to maintain it, and to
sharpen the hostility of the subject peoples, not only against
the British rulers, but against the British people, means to
hasten the isolation and ruin of the British people. The alter¬
native basis must be found of fraternal productive relations,
which can give full scope for the honourable and prosperous
existence of the British workers. That basis can be found,
but it can only be found on the basis of the equal friendship
of the peoples replacing the old relations of imperialist
exploitation.

While the rivalry of imperialisms has led once again to its
murderous outcome in renewed world war, the alternative
path now opens out before the British working class and the
British people, the path of unity with the Indian people and
with all the subject peoples in the common struggle for equal
democratic rights, for national freedom, for world peace, and
eventually for socialism. The awakening of the British people
to these issues is no less important than the awakening of the
Indian people.

INDIA IN WORLD POLITICS

485

3. India and World Peace

In considering the strategic significance of India in the past
for British world policy and for British internal politics, the
role of India has been that of a pawn, playing a part, and even
a major part, in the balance of world forces and world con¬
flicts, but not of its own choosing or under its own control.

That situation is to-day ending. The Indian people are
to-day asserting themselves, not only in Indian affairs, but in
the world sphere.

Prior to the war of 1914 the Indian national movement did
not attempt to take up any active role in relation to world
political questions, save in respect of the special question of
Indians abroad and the disabilities under which they suffered
in the other countries of the Empire.

This sense of impotence in relation to the major world
political issues of the epoch should not be mistaken for in¬
difference or deliberate isolation. Within the political move¬
ment, and even in sections of the population far beyond, there
was intense interest in foreign political events, insofar as these
might be felt to bear on the prospects of Indian liberation.
Every sign of weakening of British imperialism, as in the South
African War, was followed with eager hopefulness. The
victory of Japan in 1905 was hailed with enthusiasm and a new
sense of confidence as the first victory of an Asiatic Power
against the hitherto supposed invincible forces of Western
imperialism. The struggle of Egypt and Ireland against
British domination, of the threatened Turkish Empire against
the predatory scheme of the Powers, or of Persia against
the Anglo-Russian plans for partition, aroused passionate
sympathy. The Russian Revolution of 1905, the Turkish
Revolution and the Chinese Revolution awakened answering
echoes. All these were indications of the first beginnings of
a wider international consciousness.

In the war of 1914 the upper leadership of the national
movement gave its full support to British imperialism, in the
hope of thereby earning the reward of democratic advance in
India. The National Congress deputation in London at the
time of the outbreak of war, consisting of Lajpat Rai, Jinnah,
Sinha and others, hastened to proclaim co-operation for
“ speedy victory for the Empire The role of Gandhi has

486 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

already been recounted. In the earlier years of the war the
National Congress became the scene of ovations to the leading
Government representatives who attended it.

At the close of the war the National Congress still enter¬
tained the hope that the widely current promises of self-
determination might be applied to India. Tilak was deputed
to represent the Congress to the Peace Conference at Versailles,
and, after the refusal of his passport by the British Government
had prevented his attendance, he wrote a letter to Clemenceau
as President of the Peace Conference to press the claims of
India. In the course of this letter he wrote :

“ It is unnecessary for me to dwell upon the imperative
importance of solving the Indian question for the purpose of
ensuring the future peace of the world and the progress of
the people of India. India is self-contained, harbours no
design upon the integrity of other States and has no ambition
outside. With her vast area, enormous resources and pro¬
digious population, she may well aspire to be a leading
Power in Asia. She could therefore be a powerful steward
of the League of Nations in the East for* maintaining the
peace of the world and the stability of the British Empire
against all aggressors and disturbers of the peace, whether in
Asia or elsewhere.”

This document of 1919 is the first document of the Indian
national movement in the sphere of world policy and reflects 1
the outlook then prevailing.

These hopes were destined to be dashed. “ India ” was
made an original member of the League of Nations. The
anomaly of such a “ membership ”, when the control of India,
and therefore of the representation and policy, was entirely
in British hands, has been sharply expressed by Professor
A. B. Keith :

“ The fundamental mistake was that of 1919, when India
was given a place in the League of Nations at a time when
her policy, internal and external, was wholly dominated by
the British Government. The justification for League
membership was autonomy : it could fairly be predicted of
the Great Dominions : of India, it had no present truth,
and it could hardly be said that its early fulfilment was
possible. In these circumstances, it would have been

INDIA IN WORLD POLITICS

487

wiser candidly to admit that India could not be given then
a place in the League, while leaving it open for her, when
autonomous, to be accorded distinct membership ... As
it is, in the League India’s position is frankly anomalous ;
for her policy is determined, and is to remain determined
indefinitely, by the British Government.”

(Sir A. B. Keith, “ Constitutional History of India ”,
1936, pp. 472-3.)

The “ membership ” of India in the League of Nations under
these conditions meant only another vote in the hands of
Britain — a vote to be exercised in favour of air-bombing, of
which India was the victim, when all the other nations of the
world were declaring against it. It is against this humiliation
that the National Congress has protested in its motions in the
Indian Legislative Assembly for the withdrawal of India from
the League of Nations, at the same time as it has made clear
its full support for the membership and execution of obliga¬
tions by a free India in a world association of nations.

From this point Indian attention was concentrated on the
inner struggle within India for freedom. The Khilafat issue,
regarded as symbolic of the claims of the Moslem world against
the Anglo-French plans for the spoliation of the old Turkish
Empire, aroused intense agitation ; but even this was essentially
an expression of inner issues in India and a form around which
Moslem anti-imperialist awakening and Hindu-Moslem unity
were built up. When the unreality of the particular form chosen
for the agitation, the Khilafat issue, was exposed through the
abolition of the Khilafat by the new free Turkey, the Indian
political movement turned still more completely to con¬
centration on the immediate issues of the Indian struggle. A
phase of virtual isolation and voluntary home absorption
characterised the following years, and the previous forms
of foreign propaganda, to which in the pre-1914 period the
Congress had attached special importance, were deliberately
discontinued.

That this did not mean indifference was shown already
in the response to the new advance of the Chinese revolu¬
tionary struggle in 1925-27. The 1927 Congress carried a
resolution of protest against the dispatch of Indian troops to
Shanghai for use against the Chinese Revolution. A further
resolution was carried laying down the policy of no co-

488 THE BATTLEGROUND IN INDIA TO-DAY

operation in imperialist war. From 1927 the new awakening
was beginning. It was in 1927 that the Indian National Con¬
gress took part in the foundation of and affiliated to the
International League of Oppressed Peoples against Imperial¬
ism, being represented at the Brussels Conference by Jawa-
harlal Nehru. This was the first step to the new alignment in
the common front of the world anti-imperialist forces, linking
up the colonial peoples and the world working class.

The first signs of the new awakening thus date from 1927.
The awakening swept forward with the development of the
Fascist war offensive, and the complicity of British imperial¬
ism in assisting Fascist aggression and thus hastening the
advance to world war. The National Congress took its stand
with the Abyssinian people and with Spanish democracy and
gave practical aid. It was represented at the World Peace
Congress which met at Brussels in September, 1936, and
affiliated to the International Peace Campaign, subject to the
Indian viewpoint that no stable peace could be built up on the
basis of imperialist exploitation, that no sanctity of treaties
could be recognised which maintained imperialist domination,
and that India required freedom to act as a free member of the
League of Nations.

At the Haripura session of the Indian National Congress in
1938 the policy of the National Congress in relation to the
question of the threatening world war was proclaimed:

“ In view of the grave danger of widespread and devas¬
tating war which overshadows the world, the Congress
desires to state afresh the policy of the Indian people with
regard to foreign relations and war.

“ The people of India desire to live in peace and friend¬
ship with their neighbours and with all other countries, and
for this purpose wish to remove all causes of conflict between
them. Striving for their own freedom and independence as
a nation, they wish to respect the freedom of others and to
build up their strength on the basis of international co¬
operation and good will. Such co-operation must be
founded on a world order, and a free India will gladly
associate itself with such an order and stand for disarmament
and collective security. But world co-operation is im¬
possible of achievement so long as the roots of international
conflict remain and one nation dominates over another and

' "IF '•

INDIA IN WORLD POLITICS 489

imperialism holds sway. In order therefore to establish
world peace on an enduring basis, imperialism and the
exploitation of one people by another must end.

“ During the past few years there has been a rapid and
deplorable deterioration in international relations, fascist
aggression has increased, and an unabashed defiance of
international obligations has become the avowed policy of
Fascist Powers. British foreign policy, in spite of its
evasions and indecisions, has consistently supported the
Fascist Powers in Germany, Spain and the Far East, and
must, therefore, largely shoulder the responsibility for the
progressive deterioration of the world situation. That
policy still seeks an arrangement with Nazi Germany and
has developed closer relations with rebel Spain. It is
helping in the drift to imperialist war.

“ India can be no party to such an imperialist war and
will not permit her man-power and resources to be ex¬
ploited in the interests of British imperialism. Nor can
India join any war without the express consent of her
people. The Congress, therefore, entirely disapproves of
war preparations being made in India and large-scale
manoeuvres and air-raid precautions by which it has been
sought to spread an atmosphere of approaching war in
India. In the event of an attempt being made to involve
India in a war, this will be resisted.”

This resolution thus made clear in advance the policy of the
Indian National Movement in relation to the present im¬
perialist war. In relation to such a war the Indian National
Movement could recognise ho obligation of co-operation, but,
on the contrary, correctly concentrates its endeavours to
struggle with all its power for Indian national liberation from
imperialist rule.

£2

PART VI

CONCLUSIONS

Chapter XVIII. THE FUTURE

1 The Last Days of British Rule

2 What Kind of Free India ?

3 Reconstruction, Industrialisation and Socialism

4 The Programme of the National Front

Chapter XVIII : THE FUTURE

“ No man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation.
No man has a right to say to his country: ‘ Thus far shalt thou go and no
farther.’ ” — Parnell.

A century ago Macaulay spoke of British rule in
India as engaged in “a great, a stupendous process — the recon¬
struction of a decomposed society In the complacent
optimism of his age he remained blissfully unaware that at that
moment British rule in India was in fact carrying through a far
more profound decomposition of the old Indian society, a far
more thorough-going devastation of the whole old basis and
way of life of the Indian people for centuries, than all the
“ rapid succession of Alarics and Attilas passing over the de¬
fenceless empire ” which was his only picture of the previous
state of India.1

1 To appreciate to the full the magnificent rhetoric of Macaulay’s famous
speech on India, delivered in the House of Commons on July io, 1853, in
defence of the blessings of British rule in India and in praise of the virtues
of the East India Company, it is necessary to be apprised of the attendant
circumstances. On August 17, 1833, Macaulay wrote to his sister:

“ I must live ; I can live only by my pen, -and it is absolutely impossible
for any man to write enough to procure him a decent subsistence, and
at the same time to take an active part in politics. I have never made
more than two hundred a year by my pen. I could not support myself
in comfort on less than five hundred, and I shall in all probability have
many others to support. The prospects of our family are, if possible,
darker than ever.”

The prospect of securing the position of Law Member in India, to which
he was appointed in 1 834, would, he explained in the same letter, solve his
problem :

“ The salary is ten thousand pounds a year. I am assured by persons
who know Calcutta intimately and have themselves mixed in the highest
circles and held the highest offices at that Presidency, that I may live
in splendour there for five thousands a year, and may save the rest of
the salary with the accruing interest. I may therefore hope to return to
England, at only thirty-nine, in the full vigour of life, with a fortune of
thirty thousand pounds. A larger fortune I never desired.”

This litde extract, which is equally revealing for imperialism and for the
whole bourgeois philosophy of life, ought to be included as the overture
in every reprint of this famous speech (especially in the school editions),
which is still held up as one of the classic expressions of the loftiness of
British aims in India. The overture would assist to bring out the full
flavour of the rhetoric, especially of such passages as :

“ I observe with reverence and delight the honourable poverty which

CONCLUSIONS

To-day the picture is reversed. It is imperialism which is in
decomposition to-day, which is manifestly, and most sharply in
its central base in Europe, presenting the spectacle of “ a de¬
composed society ”, living under the panic nightmare of a
“ rapid succession of Alarics and Attilas ” who trample with
yahoo exultations over the remains of its culture, while the
people of India presents the spectacle of a young and awakening
nation, still only learning its strength and throwing off the
old bonds, but already advancing with eager self-confidence as
the progressive force against the old decaying imperialist order.

Imperialism is to-day tied up in knots in an inextricable
tangle of contradictions. Those contradictions appear equally
in the inner conflicts of the imperialist Powers for the new
division of the existing Empires, reaching now to renewed world
war, in the rising revolt of the peoples at home and advance of
the working class to the conquest of power for the realisation
of socialism, and in the parallel revolt of the subject peoples in
the Empires, who are no longer prepared to accept their
subjection. Against any one of these forces the machine of
power would be hard put to maintain the old domination.
Against all three at once the machine is beginning to break.

i. The Last Days of British Rule
The old hopes of maintaining permanent autocratic domin¬
ion over India have vanished. Under the existing conditions
the maximum hope of imperialism is to carry through such a
process of adaptation as will retain the essentials of imperial¬
ist power and exploitation under the cover of inevitable new
forms. To this end the accelerating avalanche of constitutional
reforms during the past half-century, accompanied by continu¬
ing, and in some respects intensified, repression, is directed.

In vain the old Die-Hards of the Right clamour for the “ iron
heel ” in India as the simple solution, sigh for the return of the
“ good old days ” when “ those blacks ” (as Lord Salisbury
called the first Indian member of the British Parliament) were
kept in their places, and compose dithyrambic elegies on “ The
Lost Dominion ”. They may believe that the Indian Domin¬
ion is being lost through the idealistic ardours of reforming

is the evidence of a rectitude firmly maintained amidst strong temptations.
I rejoice to see my countrymen, after ruling millions of subjects . . •
return to their native land with no more than a decent competence.”

THE FUTURE

495

parliamentary politicians, who are endeavouring to transfer
the inappropriate institutions of the West into the ungrateful
soil of the unchanging East (“ I think that the Duke of Well¬
ington once said : ‘ If ever we lose India, it will be Parliament
that will lose it for us ’ ” : Lord Cromer, “ Ancient and Mod¬
ern Imperialism ”, p. 126). It may even be that, if Fascism or
near-Fascism were to come to power in Britain, they may have
their fling for a while to try their methods, and thus hasten the
final collapse.1

But the hard-headed statesmen of British imperialism know
very well that the time has long passed for such methods to offer
any hope of success. It was not the Radical Lord Ripon, but
the Liberal Unionist and experienced professional diplomat,
Lord Dufferin, who inspired the initiation of the Indian
National Congress in the vain hope of creating a bulwark against
national revolt. It was not the Radical Lord Morley, but the
Tory Lord Min to, who, faced with the realities of the national
movement on the spot, sought to push farther to the left with
the 1909 reforms than Morley and the Liberal Home Gov¬
ernment were prepared to accept. It was not the Liberal
Montagu, but the ultra-Conservative Curzon and Austen
Chamberlain who devised the Government Declaration pro¬
mising Responsible Government in 1917, as the only way to
meet the challenge of the revolutionary wave following the
Russian Revolution ; just as it was the Milner kindergarten’s
progeny of the “ Round Table ” group which devised the
brilliantly unworkable scheme of “ Dyarchy ” to implement it.
It was not either of the two Labour Governments, but the

1 British Fascism has produced, in a programme declaration entitled
“ Fascism and India ”, whose political illiteracy is only equalled by its
ignorance of elementary facts, its infallible recipe for the rapid destruction
of British rule in India. The fascist heroes would begin with a firm
declaration, plainly intelligible to “ the Oriental mind ”, that “ there is
no prospect, either immediate or ultimate, of any diminution of British
control ” ; would scrap the constitutional reforms ; back “ the great Zemin¬
dars ” as “ a power for good check industrial development (“ India’s
future is mainly agricultural ”) and ban modem education (“ in general,
Indians must have no Western education ”). In this way, with the aid of
plentiful force to coerce India, the old nineteenth-century paradise would
be reproduced : “ We will develop the natural balance of trade between
the two countries, manufactures from Great Britain and raw materials
and foodstuffs from India” (Mosley, “Fascism and Cotton”, 1934),
while “ under a Fascist Government, India would offer perfect conditions
for good investment ”. The naive appetites of imperialism are here
expressed without the responsibility.

CONCLUSIONS

Conservative Government of Baldwin which elaborated the

Government of India Act of 1935 and the Federal Constitution.
Every step of constitutional “ reform ” in India has been carried
out under Conservative inspiration and guidance, not for any
abstract love of reform, but in the desperate hope to erect a dyke
against the flooding tide of the national movement for liberation.

By these successive dykes, by this prolonged series of tran¬
sitional stages to an ever-receding goal, the leaders of imper¬
ialism are hoping to win their rearguard action, and to carry
through a process of adaptation by which they will still retain
in their hands the decisive citadels of power, with a trained
subordinate Indian leadership to protect their interests and
hold the people in order, while the smooth flow of imperialist
tribute from exploitation continues unimpeded.

But can they do it ?

It would be a profound mistake to regard the issue as virtu¬
ally settled, and the term of imperialist rule in India as already
set. There could be no greater illusion than to imagine, as a
result of the valedictory statements now in fashion with the
more diplomatic apologists of British rule, that imperialism is
preparing to abdicate without a struggle, and is intent on com¬
mitting hara-kiri in India.

The continued domination of India is vital to the interests

of the British bourgeoisie. In the period of imperialist decline,
in the conditions of the crumbling of the former world mono¬
poly and the weakening hold of British industries in the world
market with the increasing economic and political independ¬
ence of the White Dominions, the maintenance and even ex¬
tension of the monopolist hold on India and the colonial
empire is not less essential, but more essential to the British
ruling class. This was clearly expressed by Churchill in 1933
(whose role of parliamentary antagonism to the concessions
of the Government of India Act, an antagonism formally
closed with its passing, by no means diminished his significance
as the more outspoken voice, untrammelled by the diplomacies
of official language, of the real imperialist interests in India) :

“ India is vital to the well-being of Britain, and I cannot
help feeling very anxious when I see forces from which our
population is largely supported being gradually diminished.
Foreign investments are slowly shrinking, and shipping is at
a low ebb. If to these we add the loss of India in one form

THE FUTURE

497

or another, then problems will arise here incomparably
more grave than any we have known. You will have a sur¬
plus population here which it may be beyond the Govern¬
ment to provide for effectively.”

(Winston Churchill, speech at Epping, July 8, 1933.)
We have already seen how Churchill endeavours to argue, in
this way seeking to win the support of the people for colonial
exploitation, that the maintenance of the social services in
Britain depends on the continued domination of India.

Similarly the liberal Manchester Guardian argued in 1930 in an
editorial on “ The Real Issue v :

“ There are two chief reasons why a self-regarding England
may hesitate to relax her control over India. The first is
that her influence in the past depends partly upon her
power to summon troops and to draw resources from India
in time of need. This power will vanish when India has
Dominion Status. The second is that Great Britain finds in
India her best market, and that she has one thousand
million pounds of capital invested there.”

( Manchester Guardian Weekly, January 3, 1930.)

It is true that, after this realist statement of the concrete in¬
terests involved, the cautious conclusion is drawn that “ the
selfish arguments for retaining our hold in India are out¬
weighed by the risks involved in holding on too long ”.
But what is “ too long ” ? No answer is attempted. No date
has yet been set for the goal of Dominion Status, the promise of
which was first proclaimed, to quieten Indian feeling, twenty-
three years ago. And, indeed, responsible statesmen have not
been wanting, like Lord Birkenhead, former Secretary of
State for India, in 1929, to declare explicitly that there was no
conceivable prospect of any date in view by which that goal
could be achieved (“ no sane man could assign any approxi¬
mate period for the date on which we could conceive India
attaining Dominion Status ” — see page 436).

The brutal statement of the “ self-regarding ” arguments by
the liberal imperialist journal is paralleled by such statements
on the Conservative side as that of Sir Michael O’Dwyer,
Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab at the time of Amritsar, on
“our duty to our Imperial position, to our kinsfolk in India, and
to a thousand millions of British capital invested in India ”

CONCLUSIONS

(speech to the Society of Authors, quoted by Lord Olivier in
the Manchester Guardian of March 12, 1925), or of Lord Rother-
mere in the Daily Mail on May 16, 1930, that “ many authori¬
ties estimate that the proportion of the vital trading, banking
and shipping business of Britain directly dependent upon our
connection with India is qo per cent. . . . India is the lynch-
pin of the British Empire. If we lose India the Empire must
collapse — first economically, then politically.”

Therefore, through all the diplomatic language, through all
the evasive and ambiguous promises and grudging concessions,
the central aim of the maintenance of British domination in
India still remains, and still shows through every decisive
statement. This was the significance of Lloyd George’s
“ steel frame ” speech in August, 1922, that “ Britain under no
circumstances would relinquish her responsibility in India ”,
and that he could see “ no period when India can dispense
with the guidance ” of British rule. This was the significance
of Birkenhead’s warning in 1929. This was the significance of
Churchill’s warning in 1930 that “ the British nation had no
intention whatever of relinquishing effective control of Indian
life and progress ”. That was the significance of Baldwin’s
official explanation of the purpose of the new constitution,
that “ so far from contemplating any weakening of the bonds
that unite Great Britain and India, we wish to bring about
a closer union than we have ever had before ”.

In a previous chapter, in considering the issue of “ Imperial¬
ism and Self-Government ” (Chapter XV, 1), and in particular
the question of Dominion Status, we have examined the evi-

dence in detail. On a frank consideration of the evidence, there
can be no question that, through all the promises and phrases,
imperialism is determined, if it can, to maintain its hold on India.

The struggle for national liberation is not over. The de¬
cisive struggle is still in front.

But can the imperialist rulers maintain their hold? That
is another question. Can they master the rising forces of
change which are now developing with headlong rapidity in
India? Can they find the new forms and social basis of
support to hold in check the gathering Indian liberation
movement and subordinate the processes of change to the
purposes of imperialist exploitation ? On the answer to that
question, rather than on the limelit stage of constitutional

THE FUTURE

499

reforms, which are only the public register of more complicated
manoeuvres and shifting relationships, depends the answer
to the question of the future of imperialism in India.

For in fact the old India has vanished, never to return. The
dynamic forces of change, set in motion by the destruction,
during the past century and a half, of the foundations of the old
social order through the remorseless tide of capitalist penetration,
have now initiated a process which can no longer be stayed.
With the collapse of the old foundations, more slowly, but no less
inevitably the old outlooks and beliefs of social conservatism,
the old cults and barriers are mouldering and perishing.

What chance has caste in the steelworks of Jamshedpur or on
the Stock Exchange of Bombay? What role can the joint
family system play in the swelling ranks of the rural proletariat,
robbed of their lands and now constituting from one-third to
one-half of the village population? The corrosive acid of bour¬
geois property relations eats into the fabric of social institutions
built on custom and status no less remorselessly than the flood
of cheap British or Japanese machine goods has condemned
the millions of hand-workers to slow extinction by starvation.

India is still a land of anachronisms, of feudal or quasi-
feudal survivals, of dissolute princedoms, of forced labour,
of serfdom in the midst of motor cars, the electric telegraph
and the wireless, of ancient temples with time-honoured sacri¬
ficial ceremonies next door to modern slums. The ghost of the
old super-structure lingers on after the basis has vanished. The
dead hand of imperialism holds the whole fabric together in a
state of suspended animation, of arrested development, seeking
only to superimpose its own system of exploitation, without
renovating the forces of society from within.

But, as under the old Tsardom in twentieth-century Russia,
it is only a shell that remains, ready to crumble at a touch.
The Western romantic intellectuals of the period of imperial¬
ist decay, who sought to find solace for their woes over the
advance of modern civilisation, by contemplating the filthy
pigsty of Holy Russia and finding there the shrine of eternal
spiritual values and an imagined docile and devout peasantry,
whom the modern currents of democracy and socialism could
never reach, were worshipping a carcass and blind to the
abounding power of life and awakening of the real masses who
were about to shatter their mirage. So, too, to-day the sapient

CONCLUSIONS

500

Western traveller, who goes to visit the immemorial East in
India, whether to drink at the muddy fountain of Oriental
spiritual higher thought, or to expose with patronising scorn
the innate backwardness of “ Mother India ”, is visiting only
a museum of mediaeval lumber, and is blind to the living
forces of the Indian people.

The advancing forces of the Indian people are leading the
fight against caste, again illiteracy, against the degradation of
the untouchables, against communal divisions, against the
subjection of women, against all that holds the people back¬
ward.- While the learned lectures are being delivered on the
antique Hindu civilisation and its unchanging characteristics,
the Indian national movement, enjoying the unquestioned
support of the overwhelming majority of the people, has in¬
scribed on its banners a complete democratic programme of
universal equal citizenship, without distinction of caste, creed
or sex, abolition of all special privileges or titles, universal
adult suffrage and universal free compulsory education, State
neutrality in relation to religion, and freedom of speech, Press,
conscience, assembly and organisation, far in advance of the
semi-democracy of Britain.

In an article on “ The Ferment in India ” in the latter part
of 1936 the liberal Manchester Guardian found itself compelled
to recognise “glimpses of the beginning of a revolution far
more important than anything dreamt of by the old school
of political Nationalism

“ Eighteen years after the Armistice we feel that India
can never again return to her old stable equilibrium un¬
affected by world forces. . . . The conservatism of the Brit¬
ish Raj favoured time-honoured abuses. The innovating
spirit of democracy, acting through parties competing for
votes, and strong arms to back voting power, is apt to make
short work of ancient privileges supported by neither reason,
strength, nor courage. The champions of caste privilege
are already in retreat, and the retreat looks like becoming
a rout. ... If untouchability is doomed, can caste dis¬
tinctions survive ? . . . No doubt the strength of Hinduism
is neither in the Legislatures nor in the temples, but in the
home. Yet it is just in the home that the modernising
spirit is at work through the education of women. The
Hindu joint family, the chief bulwark of caste, is being

THE FUTURE 5OI

undermined by the education of women and the facilities
for travel and contact with the outer world.”

[Manchester Guardian Weekly, December 4, 1936.)
Thus the democratic tide is advancing, in the social field no
less than the political. No less unmistakably, as the same
article is compelled to admit, gather the deeper forces of “ a
thorough-going social economic revolution ” to solve the basic
problem, “ the poverty of India ” :

“ Attention will be concentrated on the poverty of India.
He who compares India’s population with her capacity for
producing wealth may be tempted to declare the disease
incurable. But the evangelists of Communism will never
acquiesce in the pessimisms of the prosperous. They have
courage to attempt the impossible, and India’s suffering
millions will not blame them for rashness. We must therefore
expect to see the new Indian authorities called upon to oppose
or guide a thorough-going social economic revolution.”

Can imperialism hope to hold these forces in yoke, and guide
them so as to maintain intact its own system of exploitation,
the very citadel and centre of the whole system of exploitation
of the Indian people? The answer to this question lies, not
in abstract speculative discussions of liberal imperialist hopes,
nor lawyers’ subtleties of constitutional theories, but in the
hard facts of the economic foundations of imperialism and their
contradiction to the burning economic and social needs of the
Indian people.

Gigantic tasks confront the people of India. India is a
sick country, a backward country, a country of arrested de¬
velopment, ridden with disease and poverty, parasitism and
waste as no other area in the world. The contrast between the
limitless natural wealth and possibilities of India and the
poverty and misery of the people strikes every observer in
the eye,, no matter of what social or political views. In no
country is the condition of the people so damning a verdict
on the accomplishment of the Government that has held un¬
broken responsibility for over a century of development. The
basic problem of India is economic and social ; the political
problem, the fight for national liberation and for democracy, is
only the immediate outer expression of this issue, the first stage
of the fight. The agrarian crisis presses forward, every year

CONCLUSIONS

5°2

more menacing, and can find no solution, by the admission of
every expert opinion of whatever school, save through a far-
reaching agrarian revolution. But the agrarian problem itself
cannot be tackled independently of industrial development.
The necessity of a colossal programme of industrial develop¬
ment, to utilise the wasted resources of the country, bring into
play new sources of power, employ the misused or unemployed
labour of the millions of the people, create the foundation
industries for national prosperity and bring the productive
level to a standard comparable with countries of advanced
technique, is no less universally recognised. The social and
cultural tasks of education, health and hygiene, and provision
for the elementary needs of the people, are limitless. The
question before the people of India is : Who will lead this giant’s
task of reconstruction, the necessity for which forces itself on the
attention of all ? What are the conditions for its realisation ?
Through what forms and methods can it be carried through ?

Imperialism undoubtedly still hopes and calculates that it
can ride the waves of inevitable change in India ; that it can,
by a judicious combination of concessions and controlling
power, so guide, retard or mould whatever transformation has
to be permitted into such forms and channels as will yet pre¬
vent the basis of an economically and politically independent
India arising, and preserve the essentials of the monopolist
hold on India for continued exploitation by British capital.

Therefore the modern period has seen, alongside the more
widely advertised constitutional reforms, the elaborate pre¬
paration of policy and strategy along the entire front, and of ;
reserve lines of defence, through a long series of special Com- \
missions and consequential legislation : in 1916—18, the Indian
Industrial Commission; in 1921-22, the Indian Fiscal Com¬
mission ; in 1925-26, the Royal Commission on Indian Finance
and Currency; in 1926-28, the Royal Commission on Indian
Agriculture; in 1929-31, the Royal Commission on Indian
Labour. By 1935 the Reserve Bank of India was established
as the final citadel of finance-capitalist control, on a private
shareholding basis, as with the Bank of England, to exclude
“ political pressure ” (i.e., Indian political pressure) ; under
the exclusive control of the British Viceroy, who nominates
the Governor and Deputy Governors and has power to super¬
sede the Board; and specifically excluded by Section 152, of

THE FUTURE

5»3

the Government of India Act from the purview of the constitu¬
tional reforms, and safeguarded as under the unchecked “ dis¬
cretion ” and “ individual judgement ” of the Viceroy.
Thus the central citadel of power in modern capitalist econ¬
omic functioning, the financial power and control of currency
and credit, is retained as the exclusive preserve of British
finance-capital. At the same time may be observed the active
steps of British finance-capital during recent years, especially
of the big trusts like Imperial Chemical Industries, which
recently established its subsidiary in India, to build their base
in India in preparation for the new era.

It would be a mistake to under-estimate the measure of
success which has attended this process. There could be no
greater political naiveti than to be blinded by the dazzle of
constitutional reforms and loudly proclaimed concessions of
power, or deafened by the clamour of Lancashire’s laments
over its lost monopoly in India, into failing to see the more
subtle methods by which British finance-capital has in cer¬
tain respects been intensifying its hold in India in the modern
period. The evidence for this process we have had occasion
to examine in Chapter VII. The new imperialist invasion of
India during the last few years by British trust subsidiaries
masquerading as Indian industrial companies has been testified
by the latest Report of the Senior Trade Commissioner for India
1939). Speaking of the growth of new industrial enterprises
in India “ during the past ten years ” (1928-38), he writes:

“ In some important cases — notably, the manufacture of
cigarettes, matches, rubber tyres, soap, paints and certain
chemicals — these industries are branches of important firms
in the United Kingdom and elsewhere who have decided
that it is to their advantage to meet the Indian demand from
works situated inside the tariff wall, and also to be in a posi¬
tion to claim the status of Indian origin when tendering for
the requirements of Government purchasing departments.”

(Sir Thomas Ainscough, Introductory Dispatch to
Report on Conditions and Prospects of United King¬
dom Trade in India, 1939.)

The bitter complaints of Indian nationalist expression, that the
purpose of protection for Indian enterprise is being in this way

CONCLUSIONS

504

defeated, allege that Government and banking favour is being
shown to British capital masquerading in this guise as Indian
enterprise, so that the much-advertised tariff concessions to
the Indian bourgeoisie are being in fact utilised for the further
entrenchment of British capitalism in India.

“ The object of protection, which is the growth and de¬
velopment of national industries owned, controlled and
manned by nationals, is being frustrated through the opera¬
tion of non-Indian enterprises carried on in India. The
manner in which foreign capital is thus invading the Indian
soil is subtle and complex. . . . An attempt is made at
times to give it an Indian appearance which is little more
than window-dressing, as the real control and management
are more often than not in the hands of non-Indians who
have usually a set of dummy Indian directors to assist
them. . . .

“ The evil is not merely an economic one, because every
such vested interest will involve a guarantee of its perpetua¬
tion through constitutional safeguards which will severely re¬
strict the rights and powers of the Indian legislatures and
render difficult the nationalisation of vital industries. The
weight of such so-called Indo-British co-operation in industry
will ultimately be thrown on the side of political reaction
and will make a genuine economic Swaraj a lost
ideal.”

(“ A New Menace ”, article in Amrita Bazaar Patrika
(Calcutta), November 11, 1937.)

In this way imperialism prepares, in the economic no less
than in the political field, to adapt itself and maintain its
stranglehold in the new era, so as to ensure that in that new
era, though the flag may become Indian, the content and power
shall remain in the hands of British capitalism. Nor is this
only a question, in the case of India, of continued financial
penetration and exploitation, as in the case of the constitu¬
tionally independent or semi-independent Dominions or form¬
ally independent, actually semi-colonial countries of Central or
South America. In India the plan is for the combination of the
financial stranglehold and monopoly of every key point with the
essential protection and decisive control of real political

THE FUTURE

505

power through the system of “ safeguards ” and “ reserved
powers” of the British Governors behind the constitutional
facade.

It is the reality of this menace which makes the more necessary ( and
urgently practical, not merely “ visionary ” or “ extremist”, as some¬
times regarded ) the fight for complete independence as the goal of the
national movement, that is, for full economic and political independence,
for the cancellation of all concessions to foreign capital and taking over
of all foreign-owned enterprises, plantations, factories, railways,
shipping, etc., and for a type of constitution which will place the key
resources of India in the hands of the Indian people. This is already
partially envisaged in the programme of the National Con¬
gress, by the Declaration of Rights, Clause 15, that “ the
State should own or control key industries and services,
mineral resources, railways, waterways, shipping and other
means of public transport ”, and by the Lahore Congress
resolution of 1929 on Financial Burdens, implying a possible
repudiation of “ unjustifiable ” debts and concessions.1

It is strongly desirable that a more fully explicit and finally
decisive definition of Purna Swaraj or Complete Independence
should be adopted in this sense, especially in view of the very
great confusion of conflicting interpretations which has been
allowed to grow up around this term.

Nevertheless, despite the undoubtedly brilliant and pains¬
taking skill of imperialist strategy in the modern period, it is
unlikely that these dreams of maintaining British domination
and monopoly in the new era will reach fruition. The rising
forces in India cannot so easily be diverted into the channels
laid down for them by the ingenious British ruling class. The
economic problems which press more urgently every year in
modern India are incapable of solution within the conditions
of imperialism. The measure of economic development which
has taken place in the modern period under imperialist con-
1 The terms of the Lahore resolution are as follows :

“ This Congress is of opinion that the financial burdens directly or
indirectly imposed on India by the foreign administration were such as
a Free India cannot bear and cannot be expected to bear. The Congress
. . . therefore records its opinion for the information of all concerned
that every obligation and concession to be inherited by Independent
India would be strictly subject to investigation by an independent
tribunal, and every obligation, every concession, no matter how incurred
or given, would be repudiated, if it is not found by such tribunal to
be just and justifiable.”

CONCLUSIONS

5°6

trol, or in despite of the obstructions imposed by that control,
is a cramped, thwarted and distorted development, and bears
no character of a national reconstruction. It will be noted
that the “ new industries ” referred to in the extract from
the Trade Commissioner’s Report as developed under the
initiative and control of British capital are essentially secondary
light industries (“ cigarettes, matches, rubber tyres, soap, paints
and certain chemicals ”), and no basis for industrialisation.
Schemes are afoot for exploiting the vast untapped and largely
even unexplored chemical resources of India, and there is
reason to believe that considerable concessions have already
been handed out by the obliging Government to “ I.C.I.
(India) Limited But there is no corresponding develop¬
ment of the essential basis of heavy industry. The develop¬
ment of the iron and steel industry is pitiful in relation to the
possibilities and the needs ; and it is noticeable that here the
decisive pioneering work has been done, not by British
capital, but by the Indian firm of Tata, with British capital
only later buying its way in to establish a financial strangle¬
hold (purchase of the majority of the shares of the Indian Iron
and Steel Company by the British-owned Bengal Iron Com¬
pany). In 1935 the total number of workers in the iron and
steel industry was only 32,000. Between 1924 and 1935-36
the production of steel rbse from 341,000 tons to 879,000 tons ;
in the same period in the Soviet Union it rose from 1,408,000
tons in 1924 to 16,300,000 tons in 1936.

The failure to develop the basis of heavy industry, which is
the essential condition for integrated economic development,
is not accidental, but the sharpest reflection of the conditions
of imperialist domination of a country. India is still wholly
dependent on abroad for machinery. As already noted,
“ the development of the metallurgical industries means the
real industrial revolution. England, Germany and the
United States of America all started their iron and steel
industries on the modern scale before they started their textile
factories ” (L. C. A. Knowles, “ Economic Development of
the Overseas Empire ”, p. 443 — see pages 163-4 f°r the full
reference). This process has been still more powerfully
shown in the Soviet Union. The reverse process in India is
the reflection of its colonial position. The real development of
heavy industry in India, for which all the natural and technical

THE FUTURE

507

possibilities exist, and for which the whole situation clamours, is
incompatible with its colonial position, and would lay the basis
for an Independent India as a leading State in the world scale.

For this reason the conflict between the imperative needs of
economic development in India and the constricting fetters of
imperialist domination will inevitably grow more intensive
and burst all the attempts at harmony and co-operation.

A century ago the rule of the British bourgeoisie in India could
still, despite all its devastation and barbarity, and even through
these, perform the role of the “ unconscious tool of history ” in
destroying the foundations of the old order and creating the
conditions for the new. Modern imperialism can no longer
carry forward this role into the sequel of the present day,
when the tasks of reconstruction have to be carried out.

The bankruptcy of imperialism in India is written large in
the present situation of India and in the condition of the
people. It is impossible to escape the contrast between the
achievement of the Soviet Union during these past two
decades (starting from the lowest level of broken-down
Tsarism) and the record in India in the same period. When
we consider such figures as those for the iron and steel industry
given above ; the contrast in agricultural development and in
the movement of the national income; the liquidation of
illiteracy in the Soviet Union and the reduction of illiteracy by
2 per cent, in India in twenty years ; or the expanding network
of health and social services there established and the almost
complete absence of the most elementary services in India:
these facts bear deep lessons for the Indian people, and those
lessons are being taken to heart.

This bankruptcy is not a question of the ability, or even
of the honesty or good-will, of individual administrators, who,
in the case of the most enlightened representatives, see with
impotent alarm the desperate situation and where it is leading.
Even if there were the will, there is not the power on the part
of the representatives of imperialist rule to produce other
fruits. For the maintenance of imperialism is bound up, for
its social basis, with the very forces which hold India backward.
The official interdiction to the Agricultural Commission even
to discuss the foundation question of the growing agrarian
crisis in India, the land question, is a symbol of the present
situation of imperialism in India. There can be no solution

CONCLUSIONS

of the problem of Indian advance, there can be no possibility
of basic economic or social reconstruction, without tackling
the question of landlordism, without a radical solution of the
land question. But to lay the axe to landlordism means to
lay the axe to the foundation of imperialist domination, and to
open the road to social forces whose advance means the end of
imperialism. The power of British rule over the 370 millions
of the Indian population cannot be maintained simply on the
basis of the relative handful of 30,000 English civilians in the
official services or in business and 60,000 British troops. The
maintenance of that power requires a social foundation, and
that social foundation can only be found in the maintenance
of the privileges of those strata of the population whose in¬
terests are opposed to the interests of the masses of the people.
Hence the social conservatism of the British Raj and its ponder¬
ous obstruction to the most elementary reforms.1 British
imperialism has bound up its fortunes in India with the fortunes
of the landed class, of the hereditary princes, of the vested

1 “ On glancing through the records of the Imperial Legislative
Council for the year 1912, I came across a Bill moved by Mr. Bhupendra
Nath Basu to allow civil marriages between members of different castes.
The Bill, it seems, came to no more than this, that people might avail
themselves of the Special Marriage Act of 1872 (which seems to provide
for civil marriage) without first declaring that ‘ they profess no known
religion in India’. With one exception, the debate was conducted
exclusively by Indian members. That exception was the Home Member,
who bluntly announced that, until the mover could show that there was
an overwhelming preponderance of opinion in favour of the change.
Government would oppose the measure. Mr. Gokhale pleaded in vain
that the Bill might be allowed to go to a Select Committee upon which
the official members were in the majority. The mover, after replying,
was supported by ten other members. With the majority against him,
the whole corps of British officials were ordered by the Governor-General
and his Council to march into the lobby and vote the measure down. . . .

“ The attitude of Government in India on these subjects confronts
social reformers with obstacles which are heart breaking.”

(Lionel Curtis, “ Letters to the People of India on Representative
Government”, 1918, pp. 140-2.)

Since then an amending Act has been passed, but there is still no general
Civil Marriage Act (see Nehru’s “ Autobiography ”, p. 451, on the conse¬
quent difficulties, which still serve to maintain artificial barriers between
different sections of the population). With this comment of an English
imperialist may be compared Nehru’s own verdict :

“ Latterly the position has become worse from the point of view of the
social reformer, for the British are becoming more and more the silent
bulwarks of these evils. This is due to their close association with the
most reactionary elements in India.”

(Nehru, “ Autobiography ”, p. 382.)

THE FUTURE

5°9

interests in communal division, with all the reactionary forces
of backwardness and decay. These reactionary forces are
doomed to go down in the coming period before the advance
of the people, and imperialism can only go down with them.

The independence of India is therefore likely to be won in the coming
period, although the final struggle has still to be fought. Whether that
independence is won more or less rapidly depends on the degree of unity,
mass basis and clearness of aim of the national movement. The urgent
tasks of reconstruction which are historically due in India will have to be
carried out, and can only be carried out, by the Indian people themselves.

2. What Kind of Free India?

The further question of the future of India turns, accord¬
ingly, on the inner forces of the Indian people. The Indian
people is no homogeneous whole. We have seen that there
are powerful reactionary forces which are integrally allied with
imperialism for the hope of maintenance of their privileges
(though even among these new hesitations begin to become
visible, as imperialism weakens) . We have seen the vacillating
role of the Indian bourgeoisie, which is in profound conflict with
the British bourgeoisie ; which looks to the future of India as an
independent nation and has played a powerful, even dominant
part in the national movement ; yet at the same time, in fear
at each advance of the mass struggle, has again and again
acted as a brake on the national movement and reached its
temporary bargains with imperialism, only to turn again to
conflict. We have seen the rise of the industrial working class,
and of the peasant revolt, and the consequent new social issues
which come increasingly to the front in the Indian scene. In
the ranks of the intellectuals, of the students and the youth, of
the urban petty bourgeoisie, who can play no independent role,
but who provide the most active agitating and organising
elements of the conscious political movement, in the ferment
of gathering national and social crisis all these conflicting
currents of influence and outlook are sharply revealed.

The national movement, while excluding only those re¬
actionary forces which are integrally allied with imperialism,
contains within its ranks the representatives of many differing
outlooks and varied social sections. Will the unity of the
national movement be successfully maintained to the point
of the final conquest of independence from imperialism ; or

CONCLUSIONS

510

will the conservative national elements of the bourgeoisie, for
fear of the advancing mass movement, break away and join up
in closer alliance with imperialism, thus giving a temporary
new lease of life to imperialism, so that tbe final conquest of
national independence becomes linked up with the mass
struggle for social liberation ? If independence is won, what
sort of India is to replace the old British-ruled India ? Will
the revivalist advocates of reconstructed Hindu or ancient

Indian civilisation, adapted to modern conditions, based on a
renovated village economy and limitation of industrialism,
carry the day and build the India of their dreams? Or will
the industrial bourgeoisie and their representatives in the edu¬
cated class take the helm and build a modernised capitalist
India after the model of the capitalist States of the West? Or
will a temporary period of one-party national reconstruction,
on the lines of a controlled capitalism, supervene after the
model of Turkey? Or will the travail and the struggle of the
masses give rise already in the near future to a People’s India,
advancing along the path to socialism?

These and similar questions are already coming increasingly
to the front in Indian discussion. Nor are they entirely
speculative questions of the future. For the conception of
future aims, and the estimation of the role of differing social 1
sections and forces in the present struggle, profoundly affect the
present struggle and the prospects of the conquest of national
independence. The class struggle and the national struggle in
India are closely inter-related, and the understanding of this
inter-relation is the key to Indian politics and to charting
successfully the stormy seas before the Indian people.

In approaching these questions it is necessary to distinguish
between the real social or class forces, whose relative strength
and interplay will in fact govern the successive stages and final
outcome, and the various current outlooks and ideologies
through which these forces at present find their partial or
developing expression, and which appear on the surfaces as the
independent basis of the battle of ideas.

Three main tendencies or types of general social outlook
exist to-day in the national movement.

The first is the conservative (in the social sense, not neces¬
sarily in the political sense or relation to imperialism) or back¬
ward-looking tendency, which seeks to build its programme

THE FUTURE

511

on the basis of an idealised ancient Indian civilisation, purged
of its grosser evils, but retaining the essential tenets and
institutions of Hinduism; looks with horror on modern in¬
dustrialism (equally identified, without distinction, as capital¬
ism or communism) ; and believes itself, with its hand¬
spinning and advocacy of a primitive agricultural life as the
ideal, to represent the aspirations of the peasantry.

The second is the powerful tendency of the industrial
bourgeoisie, which seeks to build a modernised capitalist India
after the Western model, but at the same time fears the in¬
evitable accompanying growth in strength and rising demands
of the industrial working class and of peasant discontent, and
sometimes consequently attempts to idealise its aims under
general phrases of a semi-socialist character, “ socialism
without class struggle ” or “ Indian socialism ”, used to
denote a vague humanitarianism and class-conciliation.

The third is the rising tendency of socialism, which in its
clearest form represents the conscious expression of the aim of
the industrial working class and of the basic transformation of
Indian society, and with very varying degrees of clearness is
winning wide and increasing support within the national
movement, especially among the younger generation.

The still-continuing importance of the first of these tenden¬
cies in the present period should by no means be under¬
estimated, although it has no firm social basis, nor any
practical possibility of the realisation of its aims. Its belief
that it represents the aspirations of the peasantry, and is
therefore closest to the “ real masses ” and to the “ enduring
fabric of Indian life ”, is an illusion comparable to that of the
analogous outlook of the one-time Populists in Russia and
similar corresponding movements elsewhere, and will be
equally shattered by the advance of the agrarian revolution in
close association with the industrial working class. In fact,
it arises directly as the expression of considerable sections of the
bewildered petty bourgeoisie, harassed and endangered by
processes of remorseless economic change beyond their control,
torn from their familiar moorings, tossed without compass in
the storms of a period of transition and conflict, and vainly
seeking the comfort of some rock of ancient certainty. In its
deepest essence it reflects the desolation of all those social
forces (ruined hand-workers, expropriated peasants, bank-

CONCLUSIONS

rupted small traders) which are being destroyed by imperial¬
ism and can only see the “ Satanic Western civilisation ” and
machinery as the enemy. It is a deeply unhappy outlook, in
its heart profoundly pessimistic of life on earth as a passage
through a vale of sorrows and illusions, and seeking comfort
in an imagined spiritual world elsewhere ; it is the expression
of doomed forces, and already visibly fights a losing battle even
within the national movement, which is in its essential
character a rising and an optimistic movement. But it has its

present importance, not only as a social symptom of the process
of destruction through imperialism in India, but as still the
basis of much of the old-fashioned “orthodoxy” in the Congress

movement which has gathered round Gandhi as its prophet.

The positive programme put forward by the representatives
of this tendency is one of village reconstruction and opposition
to industrialism.

“ True socialism lies in the development of village in¬
dustries. We do not want to reproduce in our country the
chaotic conditions prevalent in the Western countries con¬
sequent on mass-production.”

(Vallabhai Patel, speech at Ahmedabad, January 3,
1 935-)

“ India, China and Egypt have to look back to the days of
their agricultural civilisation for the heyday of their cul¬
tures.”

(J. C. Kumarappa, Secretary of the All-India Village
Industries Association, “Why the Village Movement”,

1936, P-550 _

The old “ Indian civilisation ”, based on the self-sufficing .
village community (whose stereotyped forms, as Marx pointed
out, in fact provided the basis for Oriental despotism, servitude,
superstition and stagnation), is regarded as the ideal to be
revived :

“ I believe that the civilisation India has evolved is not to
be beaten in the world.”

(Gandhi, “ Indian Home Rule ”, 1908, reprinted with
new Preface, 1919, p. 66.)

In the more uncompromising statements, as in the earlier
writings of Gandhi, machinery and modern science are
roundly condemned :

THE FUTURE 513

“ It is necessary to realise that machinery is bad. We
shall then be able gradually to do away with it.”

(Gandhi, “ Indian Home Rule ”, p. 124.)

“ Hospitals are institutions for propagating sin.”

{Ibid., p. 64.)

Most sharply the outlook is expressed in Gandhi’s “ Confes¬
sion of Faith ”, written to a friend in 1909:

“ It is not the British people who are ruling India, but it is
modern civilisation, through its railways, telegraph, tele¬
phone and almost every invention which has been claimed
to be a triumph of civilisation. . . .

“ If British rule were .replaced to-morrow by Indian rule
based on modern methods, India would be no better, except
that she would be able then to retain some of the money that
is drained away to England; but then India would only
become a second or fifth nation of Europe or America. . . .

“ Medical science is the concentrated essence of black
magic. Quackery is infinitely preferable to what passes for
high medical skill. . . .

“ India’s salvation consists in unlearning what she has
learned during the past fifty years. The railways, tele¬
graphs, hospitals, lawyers, doctors and such like have all to
go, and the so-called upper classes have to learn to live
consciously and religiously and deliberately the simple
peasant life.”

(Gandhi, “ A Confession of Faith ”, 1909, “ Speeches
and Writings ”, pp. 1041-43.)

It is evident that this programme means, not the solution
of Indian poverty, but the idealisation of poverty as the di¬
vinely appointed condition of life for the majority of human
beings.

“ Increase of material comforts does not in any way
whatsoever conduce to moral growth.”

(Gandhi, “ A Confession of Faith ”, loc. cit., p. 1042.)

“ The greater our material possessions, the greater our
bondage to earth.”

(Kumarappa, “ Why the Village Movement ”, p. 39.)

“ It is not the multitude of things that we possess that
makes us happy.” [Ibid., p. 65.)

CONCLUSIONS

It is not surprising that preaching of this kind for the hungry
and discontented masses should win high favour and direct
patronage from the Indian industrial magnates, who are even
not averse to performing a little hand-spinning themselves in
their spare time as an example of contentment with the simple
life of the multitude, while they amass their fortunes from
machinery and industrial exploitation. With regard to the
rights of wealth Gandhi has expressed his social theory in not
unfamiliar terms :

“ My social theory is that, although we are born equal,
that is to say, that we have a right to equal opportunities,
nevertheless we have not all the same abilities. By the
nature of things it is impossible that we should all be of an
equal stature, that we should all have the same colour of
skin, the same degree of intelligence ; and consequently it is
natural that some of us should be more fitted than others to
acquire material gain. Those who are capable wish to
acquire more, and they bend their abilities to this end. If
they use their abilities in the best spirit they will be working to
the benefit of the people. These people will be ‘ trustees ’
and nothing more. I should allow a man of intelligence to
gain more and I should not hinder him from making use of
his abilities.”

(Gandhi, interview to Charles Petrasch, Monde, Febru¬
ary 20, 1932.)

Here the familiar bourgeois essence shows through the idealistic
cover.

The immediate practical expression of this programme is
found in the propagation of the Charka or spinning-wheel, the
Takli or distaff, the promotion of the use of Khadi or Indian
hand-made cloth as a national symbol, and the development of
village craft industries. The “ All-India Village Industries
Association ” is organised as an important adjunct of the
National Congress. Here it is necessary to recognise the meas¬
ures of practical basis that exists for this movement. Superior
economists of developed bourgeois economy freely sneer from the
enlightened heights of their system at the fantastically back¬
ward notion of solving the colossal problems of Indian economy
and under-production with hand-spinning and primitive
technique. Yet there are common-sense practical, and not
merely doctrinaire, reasons for the partial, if limited, measure

THE FUTURE

515

of support the movement has obtained. For, given the hope¬
less existing agricultural disorganisation, which condemns an
overcrowded population on the land to forms of labour that
are estimated to leave the equivalent of half the working year
unoccupied, and given the absence of industrial development,
the promotion of hand-spinning, the hand-loom and craft
industries is at any rate a temporary palliative, requiring little
equipment or resources, for a considerable stratum.

Nevertheless, it is a palliative which is based on acceptance
of the worst evils of the existing distortion and cramping of
Indian economy, and is directed to adaptation to these evils
instead of to changing them. Economically, there is no future
for an artificially attempted revival of hand industry in a
capitalist world. The Khadi or hand-made cloth cannot
compete in prices with the mill-made cloth, and is therefore
beyond the reach of the poorest. In a recent issue of his
journal, the Harijan of November 19, 1938, Gandhi complains
that the Khadi clause of Congress Constitution is “ honoured
more in the breach than in the observance ”, and appeals to
his fellow-countrymen “ to wear Khadi even though it may
not be so soft and elegant in appearance as foreign fineries
nor as cheap ”. The first difficulty may be overcome by
patriotic appeals; the second difficulty (“nor as cheap”)
is decisive for the masses of Indians on their present basis of
income. It is obvious that in a country of the most desperate
poverty like India what is wanted above all is, not more labor¬
ious and primitive methods of production to ensure the lowest
possible output, but the most modern technique and equip¬
ment to make possible the greatest and most rapid increase of
production in order to provide the means for overcoming
poverty. Indeed, it is noticeable that in his later declarations
Gandhi has modified his attitude to machinery and en¬
deavoured to argue, as in a later article in the Harijan on
village industries, that “ mechanisation is good when hands
are too few for the work intended to be accomplished. It is an
evil when there are more hands than required for the work, as
in the case of India.” The reactionary fallacy underlying this
argument is evident.

The propaganda of a primitive economy as a solution for
India’s problems is reactionary, not only because it leads in the
opposite direction to that in which the solution must be sought

CONCLUSIONS

5l6

(for the existing evils of poverty and misery are rooted in primi¬
tive technique, which is itself rooted in the social system of j
exploitation under imperialism), but because it serves as a
diversion from the basic social tasks confronting the peasantry ]
and the masses of the people. Agricultural development is J
impossible without tackling the question of the land, of land- ]
lordism and the re-division of the land. But here the voice of I
the agricultural idealists and worshippers of the vanished ]
village community becomes weak and falters, and disappears I
into a vague and shamefaced defence of landlordism. So i
Gandhi in his famous interview with the zemindars or land-
lords of the United Provinces, who came to see him at Cawn- (
pore in 1934 in anxiety over the menace of socialism, gave
them his assurance that “ better relations between landlords
and tenants could be brought about by a change of heart on
both sides. He was never in favour of abolition of the taluq-
dari or zemindari system.” He went on:

“ I shall be no party to dispossessing the propertied
classes of their private property without just cause. My
objective is to reach your hearts and convert you so that you •
may hold all your private property in trust for your tenants
and use it primarily for their welfare. . . . The Ramarajya ,
of my dream ensures the rights alike of prince and pauper.
You may be sure that I shall throw the whole weight of my
influence in preventing a class war. . . . Supposing there is
an attempt unjustly to deprive you of your property you will
find me fighting on your side. . . . Our Socialism or Com¬
munism should be based on non-violence, and on the
harmonious co-operation of labour and capital, the landlord
and tenant.”

(Gandhi, interview to deputation of United Province*
Zemindars, July, 1934, Mahratta, August 12, 1934.)

We have already had occasion to note Gandhi’s similar defence
of the industrial capitalists and opposition to labour organisa¬
tion based on class struggle.

Herein lies the practical significance of this preaching from
the standpoint of the big bourgeoisie, who tolerate and even
encourage its Utopian yearnings and naive fantasies with a
smile, because they know its business value for protecting their .
class interests and assisting Xo hold in the masses and maintain
class peace. The social significance of Gandhi’s historical

THE FUTURE

517

role as the chosen representative and ablest leader of bourgeois
nationalism in the critical transitions of the modern period
has in practice coincided with his political role, despite the
superficial contradiction between his social philosophy and the
bourgeoise outlook. The glaring contradictions and inade¬
quacies in his many utterances and teaching, which can be
easily picked out and exposed by the most elementary critic,
are in fact the key to his unique significance and achievement.
No other leader could have bridged the gap, during this transitional
period, between the actual bourgeois direction of the national move¬
ment and the awakening, but not yet conscious masses. Both for good
and for evil Gandhi achieved this, and led the movement, even appearing
to create it. This role only comes to an end in proportion as the masses
begin to reach clear consciousness of their own interests, and the actual
class forces and class relations begin to stand out clear in the Indian
scene, without need of mythological concealments.

The industrial bourgeoisie, however, while freely using
Gandhism for its figurehead and leadership of the masses,
has never permitted it to stand in the way of its requirements
and aims of progressive industrial development as the necessary
programme of the national movement. Here social conserv¬
atism, whatever it may be allowed to preach in theory, has
had to defer in practice, as in the acceptance of the equal rights
of Indian machine-made cloth, or in Gandhi’s Eleven Points
programme of 1930, which was a normal bourgeois trading,
industrial and financial programme. To-day the whole weight of
the national movement and of the National Congress is unitedly
turned to plans for the most rapid industrial development, as
shown in the National Planning Commission now set up by the
Congress, following the Industrial Planning Conference of 1938.

The modern Congress outlook on industrial development was
expressed by its President at the Annual meeting of the Indian
Science Association in August, 1938. At this meeting Pro¬
fessor Saha placed the question :

“ May I enquire whether the India of the future is going to
revive the philosophy of village life, or the bullock cart,
thereby perpetuating servitude, or is she going to be a mod¬
ern industrialised nation, which, having developed all her
natural resources, will solve the problems of poverty, ignor¬
ance and defence, and will take an honoured place in the
comity of nations and begin a new cycle of civilisation?”

5 1 8 CONCLUSIONS

The President of the National Congress, S. C. Bose, answered :

“ National reconstruction will be possible only with the
aid of Science. . . . India is still in the pre-industrial stage of
evolution. No recovery or revival is possible until we first
pass through the throes of an industrial revolution. Whether
we like it or not, we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact
that the present epoch is the industrial epoch in modern
history. There is no escape from the industrial revolution.
We can at best determine whether this revolution, that is,
industrialisation, will be a comparatively gradual one, as in
Great Britain, or a forced march as in Soviet Russia. I am
afraid that it has to be a forced march in this country also.”
Practical experience and development have thus answered
the old metaphysical speculations. Social conservatism
passes from the field of the active national movement save as a
lingering survival of old confusions, but no longer as a claim¬
ant to guidance of policy. Thereby it is revealed that there
are in practical effect not three, but two main tendencies,
groupings, programmes and lines of policy in the modern
national movement: that of the dominant industrial bour¬
geoisie, with its varied reflections in the ranks of the petty
bourgeoisie ; and that of the industrial working class, of social¬
ism, reflecting the interests of the working class, of the mass of
the poor peasantry and of the lower ranks of the urban petty
bourgeoisie. Between these two main lines of policy the mani¬
fold programmes, leaderships and sections in fact group
themselves, even though the lines are not yet always clear-cut.
On the interplay and relations of power of these sections, which
are able to march together at present in the aims of the national
struggle, and to a certain extent in the aims of national re¬
construction, but have their divergent social aims, affecting
also present issues, depends the future path of development of
Indian politics.

3. Reconstruction, Industrialisation and Socialism

The necessity of a far-reaching programme of national re¬
construction, with industrialisation as its core, has been
unanimously accepted by the national movement in the modern
period. The Resolution of the Industries Ministers’ Confer¬
ence of the Congress Provincial Governments, held at Delhi in
October, 1938, laid down:

THE FUTURE

5J9

“ This Conference of the Ministers of Industries is of
opinion that the problems of poverty and unemployment,
of national defence and of economic regeneration in general
cannot be solved without industrialisation. As a step to¬
wards such industrialisation a comprehensive scheme of
national planning should be formulated. . . .

“ This Conference, having considered the views of several
Provincial Governments, is of opinion that, pending the
submission and consideration of a comprehensive in¬
dustrial plan for the whole of India, steps should be taken to
start the following large-scale industries of national import¬
ance on an All-India basis, and the efforts of all Provinces
and Indian States should as far as possible be co-ordinated
to that end :

(a) manufacture of machinery and plant and tools of all

kinds ;

(b) manufacture of automobiles, motor boats, etc., and

their accessories, and other industries connected

with transport and communications ;

(d) manufacture of heavy chemicals and fertilisers ;

(e) metal production ;

(f) industries connected with power generation and

power supply.”

In accordance with this resolution an All-India National
Planning Commission has been set up under the direction of the
Congress Working Committee.

Many ambitious projects for reconstruction and planned de¬
velopment are now being put forward or under discussion in
India. Special mention should be made, both for its initiating
role and for its wealth of detailed research work, of Sir M. S.
Visvesvaraya’s “ Planned Economy for India ”, first published
in 1934, which puts forward a very elaborate scheme for a
“ Ten Year Plan for India ”, and builds considerably on the
technical experience (though not on the social basis, which
alone made the achievement possible) of the Soviet Union.

This general and increasingly emphatic recognition of the
necessity of industrialisation as the centre of a far-reaching pro¬
gramme of social and economic reconstruction in India is a big
step forward of the national movement. But it is evident that
the question of such a programme raises far-reaching issues of a

CONCLUSIONS

520

new type, both in respect of the necessary conditions and meth¬
ods of realisation, and in respect of the social forces capable of
realising it. As in many advanced capitalist countries, under
the shock of economic crisis and the stimulus of the successes of
socialist planning in the Soviet Union, the conception of
“ planning ” has been widely taken up in many quarters, but in
an abstract technical manner, without regard to the different
laws governing capitalist and socialist economy, and without
regard to the real social and class forces. The experience of
capitalist countries has abundantly shown the weakness of such
an approach. Least of all is such an approach possible in
India, which is in fact passing into a process of revolutionary
social transformation, and where the demands of the hungry
workers and peasants must necessarily occupy the centre of the
stage as the decisive driving force of change. The question of
economic reorganisation cannot be separated from basic social
and class issues.

In a resolution in 1929 the All-India Congress Committee
placed on record its recognition of the necessity of “ revolution¬
ary changes in the present economic and social structure of
society ” :

“In the opinion of this Committee, the great poverty and
misery of the Indian people are due not only to foreign
exploitation in India, but also to the economic structure of
society, which the alien rulers support so that their ex¬
ploitation may continue. In order therefore to remove this
poverty and misery and to ameliorate the conditions of the
Indian masses, it is essential to make revolutionary changes
in the present economic and social structure of society and
to remove the gross inequalities.”

(Resolution of the All-India Congress Committee at
Bombay, 1929.)

What those “ revolutionary changes ” are to be remains still an
open question before the national movement. The 1931
“ Declaration of Fundamental Rights ” marked a big step for¬
ward in the broad general principles of a progressive demo¬
cratic social order there laid down. This has been further
developed in the particular demands of the 1937 Election
Manifesto. But there is still lacking a general constructive
programme of the National Congress, corresponding to the
modern stage of development, to replace the old so-called

THE FUTURE

521

“ constructive programme ” of hand-spinning, prohibition
of drink and drugs, removal of untouchability, etc. Above all,
apart from the particular demands of reduction of rents and
scaling down of debts, and the abstract principle of revision of
land tenure, there is still lacking a general agrarian programme,
though the Congress has long been engaged in steps, on the
basis of previous provincial enquiries, for its preparation.

These are problems which now, as has begun to be widely
recognised in the recent period, require the urgent attention of
the national movement.

Industrialisation, and the general reorganisation of India
from the present poverty-stricken standards of low technique to
a country of advanced technique, are manifestly a task which
requires gigantic forces. It requires the active co-operation
of the entire population. It requires State power over the
decisive points of national economy and finance. To speak of
industrialisation under the conditions of imperialism is fan¬
tastic, as indeed the whole practical experience of the modern
period has shown. Paper plans for industrialisation, which
ignore the first indispensable condition of victory in the strug¬
gle for complete national independence, are Laputan specula¬
tions. The whole character of the new Constitution and its
“ safeguards ” shows that, whatever formal concessions may
be made in the constitutional field, imperialism is determined
to retain hold of the decisive citadels of economy, finance and
credit, as well as strategic power. There is no doubt that the
Indian bourgeoisie wants industrialisation. But it will not get
it by asking for it, nor has it the power on the basis of its own
weak economic position to achieve it, so long as the essential
control of national economy is in the hands of imperialism.
The first necessity is to win power from the hands of imperial¬
ism. But the Indian bourgeoisie in isolation has no strength to
achieve this. The defeat of imperialism and victory of real
national independence can only be won by the power of mass
struggle, by the power of the workers and peasants. But this
at once transforms the whole character of the consequent
problem of industrialisation and economic reorganisation.

Will the Indian masses, after they have fought and won their national
freedom, be content to hand back the India they have won by their
exertions into the possession of a small exploiting class, and to place >
themselves in servitude ? It is only necessary to pose this question
R 2

CONCLUSIONS

522

to see that the task of economic and social advance, of industri¬
alisation and the building of the new society in India must be
fundamentally different from the process of the industrial
revolution of early capitalism in the Western countries. The
task of industrialisation and economic reorganisation in India,
taking place in the period of decaying capitalism and of the
advance of the international proletarian revolution, will
necessarily find its realisation through corresponding new
forms and methods.

Industrialisation cannot be achieved without thorough¬
going agricultural reorganisation. This is still the key prob¬
lem of Indian economy. The two processes are in fact com¬
plementary. Even within the conditions of capitalist econ¬
omy, industrial development is fettered and paralysed, so long
as the mass of the population in agriculture is at the lowest
level of poverty, and there is no rising home market to con¬
sume the products of industry. Conversely, agricultural
reorganisation requires industrial development, both to pro¬
vide the essential agricultural machinery which can alone
raise the level of production, and bring into cultivation the
vast uncultivated areas, and to absorb the many millions at
present condemned to waste their energies in squalid poverty
and semi-unemployment in overcrowded agriculture, who
will be released by agricultural reorganisation.

But agricultural reorganisation requires, as the examination
of the conditions of the problem in Part III has indicated,
the liquidation of landlordism, the basic re-division of holdings,
the ending of the bankrupt system of uneconomic holdings, and
the gradual advance from primitive small-scale technique
towards the direction of large-scale collective farming. There
is no partial solution possible here. The conception of agri¬
cultural “ reform ”, which leaves landlordism intact, of the
general preaching of “ improved ” agriculture, without
touching the existing land division, is a will-o’-the-wisp. There
is no room, and there are no resources, in the existing desperate
situation, for the limitless parasitism of the present landlordism
and sub-landlordism and all the countless burdens on the
peasantry, or for the colossal waste of the existing system of land
tenure and cultivation. India’s leading agricultural expert,
Professor Radhakamal Mukerjee, who is by no means socialistic
in his outlook, has even gone so far as to say, in his

THE FUTURE

523

Agra Extension Lecture in 1935, that no improvement was
possible in Indian agriculture “ unless the Indian village was
converted from a collection of small isolated holdings to a
single co-operative farm, and agriculture was treated as a
collective service Such an outcome cannot be reached at a
single leap. But the first step is the abolition of landlordism
and the re-division of holdings, followed by the provision of
State aid, co-operative credit facilities and the loaning of
agricultural machinery from depot stations to raise the
technique of agriculture. The agrarian revolution cannot be
side-stepped. It is the main driving force of change and the
foundation stone of the new India.

It is here, however, that the weakness of the Indian bour¬
geoisie as the would-be leader of Indian national advance is
most sharply revealed. From the conditions of its growth and
development the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie in India
is closely bound up with the landlord class ; the interests and
forms of wealth are interlinked. The progressive bourgeoisie has
never been able to bring itself to envisage the abolition of land¬
lordism, however essential that might be for the development of
Indian economy. The Congress programme has not yet em¬
braced the abolition of landlordism ; and we have already seen
the assurances given by Gandhi on behalf of the Congress to
the Indian landlords for the protection of their propertied
interests. The Congress programme, as in the 1937 Election
Manifesto, following the provisional agrarian programme
adopted at Faizpur in 1936, speaks of the “ reform of the system
of land tenure and revenue and rent, and an equitable adjust¬
ment of the burden on agricultural land, giving reduction of
agricultural rent and revenue now paid by them and ex¬
empting uneconomic holdings from payment of rent and
revenue This is still a reform programme which in fact
assumes the continuance of landlordism, while hoping to
mitigate its evils. As immediate demands in the existing
situation, these are undoubtedly correct, and of the greatest
importance for the development of the peasant movement, and
of the national movement in relation to the peasantry. But
they are not yet a programme for agrarian reorganisation.
The aim of the abolition of landlordism has not yet been
accepted by the National Congress.

The unwillingness of the Indian bourgeoisie to accept the

524

CONCLUSIONS

necessity of the abolition of landlordism is governed, not only
by the identity of interests and close inter-connection with the
landed class, but also by the fear that the agrarian revolution
would release social forces which would sweep away their own
class privileges and the whole basis of capitalist property
ownership and exploitation. On this fear imperialism con¬
sciously and consistently plays in order to paralyse the opposi-
tionfightof the Indian bourgeoisie and thus weaken the national
struggle from within. So Lord Hailey (then Sir Malcolm
Hailey) argued already in the Legislative Assembly in 1924 to
warn the Swaraj Party:

“ Anything like a real revolution in India would have
most disastrous effects on that very class that is now repre¬
sented in. the Legislative Assembly and Provincial Councils ;
for among the ignorant masses of India a political revolution
would become a social revolution in a very short space of
time.”

With this may be compared the illuminating utterance of
Gandhi in a recent article in his journal Harijan in January,
1940:

“It has been suggested to me by a Congressman wielding
• great influence that as soon as I declared civil disobedience I
would find a staggering response this time. The whole labour
world and the kisans in many parts of India will, he assures
me, declare a simultaneous strike. I told him that if that
happened I should be most embarrassed and all my plans
would be upset. ... I hope I am not expected knowingly
to undertake a fight that must end in anarchy and red ruin.”

The fear of “ red ruin ” through the action of the workers and
peasants is the familiar language of conservative reaction in all
countries, and provides a common platform for imperialism
and the national bourgeoisie.

It is thus from the direct experience of the Indian situa¬
tion, and of its ever more urgent needs, from the repeated
experience of the weakness and failure of leadership of the
bourgeoisie in the national struggle, and above all from the
rising strength, activity and consciousness of the working class
and of the gathering forces of the agrarian revolution, that the
question of socialism has inevitably come to the forefront in the.

THE FUTURE

525

modern period in the national movement in India. The con¬
ception of socialism in India is no abstract speculation of the
future, imported from outside, but the direct product and out¬
come of Indian conditions and Indian experience, utilising the
experience, the theory and practice, of the world movement,
as in all countries. The direct supporters of socialism within
the national movement now represent a growing and influ¬
ential section. The political working-class movement in
India is still in process of development, of strengthening its
organisation, clearness of programme, experience and mass
basis ; but it is already widely recognised as the rising force of
the future.

The transition to the socialist outlook within the national
movement, and the popularising of the relation of socialism
to nationalism, found typical expression during the past
decade in the transitional position of Jawaharlal Nehru,
President of the Congress in 1929 and in 1936-38, who
remained outside the organised socialist movement, but
acted as a bridge between the rising socialist body of
opinion and the older leadership. Nehru brought to the
forefront the close connection between national liberation
and social liberation :

“ If an indigenous government took the place of the
foreign government and kept all the vested interests intact,
this would not even be the shadow of freedom. . . .

“ India’s immediate goal can therefore only be con¬
sidered in terms of the ending of the exploitation of her
people. Politically, it must mean independence and the
severance of the British connection, which means imperialist
dominion ; economically and socially it must mean the
ending of all special class privileges and vested interests.”

(Jawaharlal Nehru, “Whither India? ”, 1933.)

While recognising that the Congress represents the collabor¬
ation in the national struggle of socialist and non-socialist
elements, the latter being at present in a majority, he has
expressed his conception of the way in which he hopes that the
national movement will advance to the socialist outlook :

“ I work for Indian independence because the nationalist
in me cannot tolerate alien domination ; I work for it even
more because for me it is the inevitable step to social and

CONCLUSIONS

526

economic change. I should like the Congress to become a
Socialist organisation and to join hands with the other forces
in the world who are working for the new civilisation. But I
realise that the majority in the Congress, as it is constituted
to-day, may not be prepared to go thus far. . . .

“ Much as I wish for the advancement of Socialism in this
country, I have no desire to force the issue on the Congress
and thereby create difficulties in the way of our struggle for
independence. I shall co-operate gladly and with all the
strength in me with all those who work for independence,
even though they do not agree with the socialist solution.
But I shall do so stating my position frankly, and hoping in
course of time to convert the Congress and the country to it,
for only thus can I see it achieving independence.”

(Jawaharlal Nehru, Presidential Address to the Luck¬
now National Congress, 1936.)

Here is presented a picture of the gradual conversion of the
Congress to socialism, with the maintenance of a temporary
equilibrium in the meantime. This conception, however,
leaves out of account the present clash of class forces, which
inevitably finds its reflection also within the Congress and in
the problem of the relations of the Congress and the masses.
This conception consequently becomes a theory of class- ,
conciliation in the name of national unity ; and such class-
conciliation can in practice play into the hands of the national
bourgeois leadership who retard the advance of the active
national struggle.

There is no doubt, and it is becoming increasingly clear to
progressive Indian opinion, that the final solution of India’s
problems can only be achieved along socialist lines. Only
socialised industry and collective agriculture can finally provide
the means which will raise India from a world slum to a land
of plenty and happiness. Only the mighty social forces of the )
working class, once grown to its full stature and role of leader*
ship, and of the working peasantry, once liberated from bond- '
age, and drawing into co-operation the most clear-sighted and I
progressive elements of the intellectuals and urban petty
bourgeoisie, will be able finally to clear out the Augean stables
and build the new society in India.

Nor is such a vision of India’s future so distant as might
be imagined by remote observers. The dynamic forces of 1

THE FUTURE

527

India’s socialist future, the forces of the industrial working
class and of the awakening masses of the peasantry, are already
gathering and advancing more and more clearly to the fore¬
front of the political scene. Once the working class will have
reached its maturity of organisation and political leadership,
through the development of its political party and trade-
union organisation on the firm basis of class struggle, and
guided by the light of Marxist theory, and once it will have
built its contact and alliance with the masses of the poor
peasantry and agricultural proletariat, . who are already
building their peasant unions, the conditions will have
ripened for the realisation of the Indian Republic of the working
people, representing the democratic power of the workers and
peasantry in association with the radical intellectuals and other
elements of the urban petit-bourgeoisie, who by their common
efforts can lay the foundations of social reconstruction along
the path that leads to socialism.

In this connection the experience of the Soviet Union, and
the new type of democracy which has been evolved there, has
very important lessons and significance for a country like
India. Despite the fundamental differences between the old
Tsarist Russia on the eve of revolution and present-day India,
which rule out any mechanical comparison, especially the
vital difference between the situation of an imperialist country,
and of a colonial country, there are nevertheless certain
valuable analogies in the relations of social forces, and in the
special type of problems which had to be faced and have been
solved in the Soviet Unon, that have an important bearing for
India to-day. In India we see the picture of a foreign
despotic rule, already weakening, and building for its main
support on reactionary feudal forces ; a weak industrial bour¬
geoisie, ambitious to advance, in vacillating opposition to the
despotic rule but fearing also the mass forces; a rising in¬
dustrial working class, numerically small, but concentrated in
large-scale industrial enterprises in a relatively restricted num¬
ber of commanding centres, and already showing very militant
class-consciousness and activity ; and the mass of the peasantry
constituting the overwhelming majority of the population,
living under extremely backward conditions of an obsolete
land system, held down in ignorance and illiteracy, driven to
desperation, and advancing to a basic agrarian transformation.

CONCLUSIONS

In a country with the social conditions of India, it is mani
fest that the most suitable form of democracy may not be the
parliamentary form, but rather a form closely fitting to the
conditions and life of the mass of the people, and linking up
village councils of the working peasantry with the councils of
the workers in the factories and similar organs. Such a form
of democracy is soviet democracy. Soviet democracy would
be close to the people, to the workers in the factories and the
peasants in the villages. Soviet democracy would be able to
release, as no other form, all the creative forces of the working
class, of the peasantry, and of the mass of intellectuals, scien¬
tists, technicians and urban petty bourgeoisie who are cramped
and thwarted of utilising their talents for the common good in
the existing system, to co-operate in the common task of con¬
structing the new India.1

Of especial importance for India — and in particular for the
backward tracts in the country and for the remains of those
races which survive of the original inhabitants of the country —
is the experience of the development of the Central Asian
Republics in the Soviet Union, which under Tsarism were held
under the most complete national and social subjection, and

where the possibility has been shown for peoples at even the
most primitive stage of culture, through the co-operation of the
advanced industrial working class, to move rapidly forward,
without needing to pass through any intervening capitalist
stages, along the path of technical and cultural advance to
socialism.

1 It is worth noting the tribute paid to Soviet Democracy in the Presi¬
dential Address of Jawaharlal Nehru to the Lucknow National Congress
in 1936:

“ It is interesting to read in that monumental and impressive record,
the Webbs’ new book on Russia, how the whole Soviet structure is based
on a wide and living democratic foundation. Russia is not supposed
to be a democratic country after the Western pattern, and yet we find the
essentials of democracy present in far greater degree amongst the masses
than anywhere else. The six hundred thousand towns and villages
there have a vast democratic organisation, each with its own soviet,
constantly discussing, debating, criticising, helping in the formulation of
policy, electing representatives to higher committees. This organisation
as citizens covers the entire population over eighteen years of age.
There is yet another vast organisation of the people as producers, and a
third, equally vast, as consumers. And thus scores of millions of men
and women are constantly taking part in the discussion of public affairs,
and actually in the administration of the country. There has been no
such practical application of the democratic process in history.”

THE FUTURE

529

4. The Programme of the National Front

Such a perspective of a People’s India, or Workers’ and
Peasants’ India, advancing to socialism, holds out the image of
the future for India in the modern world. Along that per¬
spective we can throw our gaze forward to the building of
socialism in India, and to the ultimate outcome in the future
classless society, when the national divisions (inevitable in the
transitional stage of independence and separation, to end the
subjection of one nation to another) will have finally vanished,
and India will be part of the united world classless society.

But that does not mean that this goal can be reached in a step,
or that socialism represents the immediate next stage in India.

The first task is the winning of national independence. The im¬
mediate next step before the people of India is the conquest of national
independence by the ending of imperialist rule and the overthrowing of its
feudal-reactionary supporters within the population — that is, the
carrying through of the fight for democracy.

It is necessary to reject decisively the “ socialist ” arguments
sometimes put forward by supporters of imperialism in Britain,
from within the British Labour Movement, that, since the
basic issue in India is economic and social, therefore the fight
for national freedom is a “ liberal ” illusion in the interests of
the Indian exploiters, and to be set in opposition to the fight for
socialism.

“ The real and most urgent problem in India is not
political, but economic. Hassan and Chandra are not
robbed and starved because a British Viceroy sits in a lodge
at Calcutta ; were he supplanted to-morrow by the Maha¬
rajah ofBurdwan or a Tata billionaire from Jamshedpur, the
ryot would know no difference.”

(Glasgow Forward, June 9, 1928.)
The purpose of this sophistical argument to excuse the policy
of Labour Imperialism is transparent. The attack on the
Indian exploiters covers the defence of imperialism. The
“ socialist ” of the oppressor country anxiously assures the
Indian people that the real enemy is not imperialism, but the
Indian exploiters: indeed, he is so uncompromising in his
hostility to the Indian exploiters, and so concerned to warn
the Indian masses against a united front with their own
bourgeoisie for national liberation, that he forms a united front

CONCLUSIONS

with his own exploiting class to maintain the subjection. The
practical working out of this policy, and of this tender concern
for the interests of the Indian masses, was shown two years later
when the Labour Party in office bludgeoned, shot or im¬
prisoned scores of thousands of the Indian people to prevent
them winning democratic rights.

It is obvious that this outlook has nothing in common with
socialism. It is in reality nothing but the most commonplace
support of imperialism, dressed in a “ socialist ” phrase.

The outlook of socialism and the working-class movement,
both in India and internationally, fully recognises the decisive
importance of victory in the struggle for national independence,
and the necessity of a broad national front to win the victory of
national liberation. It recognises this, not only because the
difference between national subjection and national indepen¬
dence is a real one and no figment of the imagination, as
every subject people very well understands (although certain
superior imperialists of the West have risen so high above
“ narrow national prejudices ” as to be unable to understand
this “ obsolete nineteenth-century liberal illusion ”, and thereby
place themselves on the side of the slave-owners). Marxism
recognises, supports and fights in the forefront of the struggle
for national liberation, also because it recognises that the
victory of national liberation is essential for the victory of
social liberation.

For the real facts are the opposite of those set out in the ex
tract quoted. It is not true that the “ economic ” issue can be
separated from the “ political ” issue. It is not true that the
main exploitation of the Indian people is by the Indian ex¬
ploiters, while imperialism sits impartially above the battle
It is not true that “ capitalism ” can be separated from im
perialism. On the contrary, the main exploitation of the
Indian people to-day is the direct exploitation by British
finance-capital, and the role of the Indian exploiters is still
subsidiary to this central system. The landlords and the
princes are maintained by British power. The cream of the
spoils of exploitation goes to imperialism. With all the power
of the State in its hands, British imperialism controls the main
branches of industry, railways, sea and river transport, the
banks and credit system, the greater part of the land, forests
and the irrigation system. Here is the main exploiter. Here

llJ

' ' - 'J

THE FUTURE 531

is the main immediate antagonist who must be overcome in
order to advance to social liberation. The awakening peasant
who is driven to struggle may first see his conflict against the
local landlord’s agent and the village moneylender. But he
soon learns in practical experience that the power which sus¬
tains these and suppresses his struggle is the power of the
British Raj, of the British courts, legal system, police and
armed forces. This is the power which arms the puny hand
of the local landlord and petty moneylender. Against this
apex of the whole system of exploitation the struggle must be
directed. State power must be won by the Indian people from
imperialism. Once they have gotrid of the imperialist exploiter,
they will be in a stronger position to deal with their own exploi¬
ters. The battle for socialism requires the battle for democracy.

But, while this is true, it is also necessary to reject the con¬
verse argument often put forward by the representatives of
bourgeois nationalism, that, since the first goal is the winning
of national independence, therefore the raising of the banner
of socialism, the independent organisation of the workers and
peasants, the raising of social and class issues, is “ premature ”
and harmful to the supreme need of “ national unity ” until
Swaraj is obtained : first, Swaraj, then social and class issues
“later ”, So the Hindustan Times in a recent warning to the left :

“ It is the incubus of foreign domination that is petrifying
all progress and stunting our national life. Let the nation
once get rid of it and then the socialists will have enough
time and opportunity to preach their doctrines, if the public
are prepared to listen to them. It is not patriotism to divide
the country in the face of common peril.”

The organ may be the organ of Indian capital ; but the type
of language is not unfamiliar in other countries.

This argument must be rejected, not because its premise, that
the first task is the winning of national independence, is in¬
correct ; but because it makes a false separation of the national
struggle from social issues ; falsely identifies the bourgeoisie
with the whole nation ; and gives in consequence a misleading
conception of “ national unity ”, such as would lead, not to the
victory, but to the defeat of the national struggle.

The emergence of the issue of socialism, of socialist politics
and organisation, in the modern period in India is a historically

CONCLUSIONS

532

inevitable and progressive development. It is by no means
simply the expression of an abstract discussion of the future
form of society “ after Swaraj ”. On the contrary, as in all
countries, the emergence of socialism as a political force in
India is the expression and reflection of the emergence of the
independent political role, consciousness and organisation of
the working class, together with the awakening peasantry and
all those elements which are seeking to end all exploitation and
to complete national liberation by social liberation. This
development and advance is of the greatest importance, not
only for the whole future of India, but for the present struggle.

The working class and the poor peasantry, while co-operating
in the common national struggle, require their independent
organisation and their independent political expression (just as
the bourgeoisie have in fact theirs, in their Press, their Chambers
of Commerce and employers’ organisations), because they have
their independent interests to protect, both for the future and
in the present, and because they have their own approach and
outlook to contribute to the common national struggle, its
programme and its methods. So far from this being contrary
to the interests of the national struggle, it is indispensable for
its stronger development and final success.

The national unity of the Indian people, which is in¬
dispensable for victory over imperialism, is not and cannot be
an abstract 100 per cent, unity of an imaginary homogeneous
people. On the contrary, we have seen that there are socially
reactionary elements which will remain to the last on the side of
imperialism. We have seen the vacillating and untrustworthy
role of the Indian bourgeoisie, which, alongside its services to the
national movement, has also often acted as a brake and as a
channel of imperialist influence. In proportion as the role of
the working class and of the peasantry in the national struggle
has increased, the national struggle has grown stronger, its
aims more definite and uncompromising, its tactics bolder, and
its strength to enforce attention to its claims greater. The
further development of this role, the increasing weight and
leadership of socialism and the working class in the common
national movement, uniting with other elements, the shifdng
of the basis and programme of the national movement to reflect
more and more directly the expression and close interests of
the masses, is decisive for the victory of the national struggle.

THE FUTURE

533

This development is not only essential for the successful
prosecution of the national struggle. It is also essential for the
full realisation of the aims of complete independence.

The immediate task is by comrqon consent the victory of
national independence, that is, the conquest of democracy.

But the tasks which require to be fulfilled for the victory of
democracy are by no means comprised simply in the formal
constitutional change, the transference of power and
sovereignty from British rule to Indian rule.

First, the effective conquest of complete independence and ending of
imperialist domination in India requires, as we have seen, not only the
formal ending of the political rule of imperialism in India, but the
cutting of the stranglehold of British finance-capital on the life, labour,
resources and freedom of development of the Indian people : that is,
the cancellation of the existing concessions to foreign capital and the
taking over of all foreign-owned enterprises, plantations, factories, rail¬
ways, shipping, irrigation works, etc., together with such arrangements
as are politically and diplomatically possible, according to the relations
of strength, for bringing down the load of debt.

Second, the democratic transformation is, as we have seen, bound up
with the agrarian revolution, for the liquidation of landlordism, the re¬
division of land, the wiping out of peasant debt and the modernisation of
agriculture.

Third, the immediate tasks of economic and social reconstruction in
India, to make possible industrialisation and the necessary cultural
advance as the only basis for a free India, require that the independent
Indian State shall be, as foreshadowed in the Congress Declaration of
Rights, in possession of the key points of economy, that is, of the key
industries and services, mineral resources, railways, waterways, shipping
and other means of public transport, and of banking and credit.

These are not yet the tasks of building socialism, although
they already lay down the preliminary foundation for it.

It is evident that the Democratic Republic in India, which is
the present goal of the struggle of national liberation, will in¬
evitably have to be a Democratic Republic of a new type, very
different in character from the plutocratic imperialist semi¬
democracies of the West, a Democratic Republic which has destroyed
the foundations of feudalism and landlordism, which is in possession of
the key points of economy for national development, and which gives free
play to the organisation and advance of the working class and of the
peasantry.

CONCLUSIONS

534

What the political and constitutional forms will be for the
realisation of these aims will be determined in the historical
process of the struggle. No paper constitutions laid down in a
vacuum in advance, other than the declaration of the aims and
principles of the democratic transformation, can here avail to
anticipate the historical development or the growth of the
appropriate forms out of the experience of the people in the
actual conditions of the struggle.

Corresponding to the present stage, and to the aims of the
democratic transformation, the immediate objective of the
united national movement is the Constituent Assembly, freely
elected by universal suffrage to enable the representatives of
the Indian people to draw up their own form of democratic
constitution.

The immediate need, recognised in the expression of all
sections of the national movement, is the development of the
broadest national front, drawing in equally the bourgeoisie
(insofar as they are prepared to join in the common struggle
against imperialism), the urban petty bourgeoisie (intellectuals,
students, hand-workers, employees and small traders), the
working class and the peasantry for the common aims and
programme of national liberation, the resolute prosecution of
the struggle against imperialism by every effective means, and
the victory of democracy.

The National Congress, with its 5 millions of membership,
has already carried forward a historic stage of development
towards the realisation of such a broad national front. But
much further development is still needed to complete the
realisation of a united national front, and to unite, organise and
lead effectively the masses of India in the struggle.

There is still room to clarify the aims and programme of the
national movement, including the central aim of Puma Swaraj
or Complete Independence, to lay down in more positive and
concrete form the conditions of independence, on the lines
suggested above, and to bring the positive and concrete
meaning of this aim closer to the aspirations and life-needs
of the masses.

There is still need to revise and modernise the tactics and
methods of the national movement, to emancipate it from
the religious-metaphysical doctrines of “ non-violence ”, which
are often used as the cover for reactionary policies, and to

THE FUTURE

535

develop the fullest strength of mass economic and political
agitation, organisation and forms of struggle, in close associa¬
tion with the organisations of the working class and the
peasants.

Above all, the full role of the masses in the national move¬
ment has still to be realised, and to find corresponding
political expression and forms of organisation. The National
Congress is at present based on individual membership, with an
annual subscription of four annas or 4 \d. (to a Western reader,
very low; but actually beyond the means of masses of the
peasantry, so that in a primary Congress election there may
be a division between the actual qualified electors and the
populace of poor villagers who often attend the meetings,
shout their preferences, but have no vote). The nominal
membership of five millions may give a misleading picture of
the real degree of closeness to the lower masses of the two
hundred and seventy millions of British India. An analysis
of the actual social composition of the elected delegates to the
Provincial Congresses and National Congress, and of the
members of the Provincial Committees, All-India Com¬
mittee and Working Committee, would throw a very valuable
fight on how far the working cultivators and industrial
workers, constituting the overwhelming majority of the
population, are in practice able to play an effective part in the
ruling bodies of the Congress. The Congress is undoubtedly
close to the masses in the sense of being the recognised national
ocgan which speaks for them, and whose organisation reaches
out most profoundly among them; but there is inevitably a
difference between a body, based mainly in its active workers
on a different class, which works among the masses, and the
direct representation of the masses on the basis of their own
organisations. The understanding of this is the key to the gulf
which can often appear between the higher leadership of the
Congress, with its strong domination by bourgeois influence,
and the mass movement.

All these are only aspects of the basic problem of building
and developing the broad national front, with the increasingly
active role of the working masses within it, capable of winning
victory in the battle against imperialism. Undoubtedly there
are sharp issues in front, in the inner development of the move¬
ment no less than on the field of the struggle, sharp turns and

CONCLUSIONS

536

inner crises of development, of leadership and policy. No great
movement has ever developed otherwise. The political
complexity of the Indian situation is the more marked, not only
because of the vastness of the arena, the variety of the issues and
the many different simultaneous stages of development in
different parts, but above all because the inter-relation of the
national struggle and the social struggle or class struggle raises
inevitably critical questions in a rapidly developing situation,
as old forces pass into the background and new forces press to
the front. But these problems can be solved, given unity of all
the decisive forces of the people in the common aim of the
national struggle against the common enemy, imperialism, and
given at the same time the understanding and co-operation of
the national movement as a whole for the fullest scope and free
development of working-class economic and political organisa¬
tion, and of peasant organisation, as the representatives of the
rising creative forces of the future.

The decisive battles of India for freedom are in the near
future. Whether that transition to freedom will be stormy, and
achieved at the cost of heavy sacrifices, or whether it will be
relatively smooth and rapid, depends, not only on the strength
of the Indian national movement, but also on the understand¬
ing and active co-operation of the British working class and of
the British democratic movement. In any case, whatever the
conditions of the struggle, that transition is historically certain,
and it will be well for the working class and democratic forces
in Britain to recognise it in time. The war has only accelerated
issues which are already maturing in India — the issues of the
decisive struggle for national liberation, and eventually of the
struggle for social liberation.

There is no question that the popular forces are advancing in
India. The forces of the working class and of the peasantry are
advancing, through struggle, to consciousness of strength, to a
great creative work and to a happier future. The active
sympathies and good will of the working class and progressive
forces all over the world will accompany and support the
Indian people in their struggle for complete liberation, of such
deep significance and hopefulness for the future of the world.
The freeing of India will mean a great step towards the liberty,
the equality and the eventual unity of the human race, and
towards the final victory of world peace and world socialism.

INDEX

Abyssinia, 14, 141, 477, 488
Adams, Brooks, “ The Law
of Civilisation and De¬
cay ”, n8, ng
Aden, 481

Adhikari, G. M.p 377, 472
Afghanistan, 140, 269, 477
Africa, 17, 28

Age of Consent Act (1891),
275. 291-2

Agriculture, 181-241, 242
Congress Ministries' Policy,
466-7

Co-operation, 243-4
Departments, 242
Labourers, 218-21, 348
Research Institute, 242
Royal Commission, 182,
502. 507

Royal Commission, Evi¬
dence, 53-4, 221, 240
Royal Commission, Report,
187, igo, 192, 225, 229,
236, 246m

Ahmad, Muzaffar, 373, 377,
381

Ahmad, Dr. Z. A., 415-16
Ahmedabad, 55, 58, 304, 365
Congress (1921), 310-13
Labour Union, 370, 382,

38s

Akali movement, 309
Akbar, 202
Alaska, 18

Alexander, Prof. H. G., 336
Alexander, N., 136
Ali brothers, 306
AJi, Mohamed, 4og
Allahabad, 362-3
Bank, 171

Alliance Bank, Simla, 171
Alwe, A. A., 377
Ambedkar, Dr. B. R., 362-3
Amritsar, 35, 304
Anderson, Sir John, 340
Andrews, C. F., 311, 31 6n.,
33on.

Andrews, C. F., and Mooker-
jee,G., “Rise and Growth
of the Congress in India ”
(1938), 278m, 283
Anglo-Japanese Treaty, 476
Ansari, Dr., 414
Anstey, Dr., “ The Economic
Development of India ”
(1936), 30, 63, 70, 185,
2ZO-ZI, 244, 245, 26Z
Anti-Semitism, 404
Arabia, z7, 477, 479
Arkwright, zz7
Arms Act (1879), 279
Army in India, Organisation,
478-80

Army in India Committee
(1913). 478
Amot, R. P., 3570.

Assam, 189, 356, 461, 464
Aurangzeb, 40, 4Z
Australia, z7, 18, 434, 480

Baines, F., “ History of the
Cotton Manufacture ”
(1835), 116

Balance of Trade, 136-7, 159
Balfour Committee on In¬
dustry and Trade, 146
Baldwin, Stanley, 437, 439,
440, 486

Banerjea, S. N., 278, 288-9
Banks and Banking, 142,

170-3

Bank deposits, 171
Bank of England, g8, 118
Bank of International
Settlements, 162
Exchange Banks, 142, 171
Imperial Bank of India,
142, 1 70-1, 173
Joint Stock Banks, 142, 171
Presidency Banks Act
(1876), 142

Reserve Bank of India, 170,
502-3

Bannerjee, S. N., 378
Baptista, J., 370
Bardoli peasants' strike, 206
Bardoli resolution (1922),
313-17

Baring, E., 47, 48
Bams, M., “ India To-day
and To-morrow " (1937),
350-

Basu, Major B. D., " Ruin
of Indian Trade and In¬
dustries ” (1935), 258
** Consolidation of Christian
Power in India " (1927),

407

Basu, B. N., 568n.

Basak, G., 377
Bazley, T., 130
Belgium, 18, 65, 66
Bengal

Agriculture, 184, 190, 199,
205, 217, 237, 244-5
Banking Enquiry Commit¬
tee Report (1930), 199
Census Report (1921), igo;

(i93i). 71-2
Coal, 44

“ Depressed Classes 261
Electoral Representation,
411D., 461

Emergency Ordinances
(1924), 432
Famine <i77o), 115

Historical, 40-2, 107, no-
16

Housing, 363-4
Indebtedness, 231
Industrial Disputes Com¬
mittee (1921), 237
Irrigation, 195-7
Jute Enquiry Report (1934),
237

Labour Conditions, 350, 354
Labour Movement, 367,
37i, 373, 374, 377-9, 384
Land Revenue, 205, 210
Landowners' Association,
212, 278

Municipalities Act, 303
National Movement, 278-g,
292,297,340, 474
Partition of, 197
PermanentSettlement, 114,
124, 205, 209-12, 232
Population, density of, 67
71-2

Undernourishment, 53, 60
Upper Chamber, 451
Wages, 354

Bengal Iron Company, 506
Benn, Wedgwood, 434
Bentinck, Lord W., 130, 212
Bernier, 41—2

Besant, Mrs. A., 289, 300,
302,325,368-9
Bihar, 189, 261, 263, 354,
420, 451, 464
Bikanir, 398

Birkenhead, Lord, 320, 433,
436, 497

Birth Control, 63, 70
Bolts, W., “ Consideration

on India Affairs " (1772),
xio

Bombay Chronicle , 318
Bombay

Agriculture, 189, 221, 240,
244

Congress Ministry, 464-9
Cotton Mills, 169, 276,
359-60

Cotton Profits, 356-60
Death Rate, 80
Education, 469
Election (1937), 461
Health, 58, 8o, 352, 468
Historical, 107
Housing, 54, 56, 352
Industrial Disputes Com¬
mittee (1922), 371
Industrial Disputes Act
(1938), 384. 468
Infantile Mortality, 58,
352

La bour Condi t ions, 5 2 ,
55. 351-2, 354-5. 359-6o

INDEX

Bombay

Labour Movement, 14-15,
297. 322, 364-7, 369-7i,

373-So

National Movement, 279,
334“5

Riots Enquiry Committee
(1925), 326

Textile Labour Enquiry
Committee (1937), 467
Upper Chamber, 451
Wages, 354
Bonnerjee, W. C., 281

“ Introduction to Indian
Politics ” (1898), 282
Books, publication in India,
79

Bose, A. M., 279, 288
Bose, S., " Rural Indebtedness
inS.W. Birbhum” (1937),
227

Bose, Subhas, 308, 309, 322,
324, 339, 3420., 471-
4, 518

“ The Indian Struggle
(1934), 308, 309, 314,
324, 327, 339
Bradley B. F., 377, 381
Brahmo, Samaj, 274, 278
Bright, John, 194-5, 425
British capital in India, 21,
139-49, 160, 497
British East India Company,
19, 61, 97-8, 106-16
British Empire, 18, 19,

476-81

British Fascism and India,
495n*

British India Society (Bengal),
278

British Indian Association,
278

British Labour Movement and
India, 482-4, 529-30
Labour Government (1924),
35, 373. 432-3
Labour Government (1929-
31). 334, 380-1, 435,

530

Labour Party, 435, 483,

529

Trades Union Congress,
347, 350-1, 375, 380-1
British trade with India,
history, 99, 124, 136-7
decline, 20-1, 144-5, 146
Brockway, F.( 257
Buchanan, D. H., “The
Development of Capital¬
ist Enterprise in India ”
(1934), 29, 128-9, 131.
165, 352-3, 365-6
Buchanan, Dr. F., 203
Buddhists, 405
Budget, 45, 447, 453, 469,

479-8o

Burke, 33, 116, 118, 123
Burma, ig, 43, 146, 189,
193, 264-5, 391, 405, 477
Burma- Yunnan Road, 17,
480

Butler, Sir Harcourt, 266
Butler Committee Report
(1929), 395-6

Caine, W. S., 288
Caird, Sir J. (Report in i87g),
193

Calcutta, 58, 107, 363-4
Calcutta Congress (1906),

296

Calcutta

302

Calcutta

Congress (1917),

Calcutta Congress (illegal
session, 1933), 341
Calcutta Special Congress
(19301,306
Calicut, ig
Canada, 18, 45, 434
Canals, 194-6
Canning, Lord, 394
Capital Issues in India, 160
Carjyle, T.', 234
Carr-Saunders, Prof., “ World
Population” (1936), 64m
Caste, 60, 261-3, 499
Catrou, F. F., “ The General
History of the Mogul
Empire ", 41

Cawnpore Riots Enquiry
Report (1931), 421— 2n.
Cawnpore textile strike (1938),
384, 421, 467

Cawnpore Trial (1924), 321,
373

Censorship, 34-5, 396-7
Census (igoi), 185, 264
(1911), 127-8, 185, 186
(1921), 185, 189, 216, 264,
266

(1931), 19, 27, 57, 185,
215-16, 236, 265, 347-8,
389, 405

Bengal, 71-2, 190
Bihar and Orissa, 263
classification^ occupations,
185

Central Asian Republics, 82-
8, 528

Central Bank of India, 177
Central Provinces, 189, 244,
354. 461, 464
Chakravarty, G., 378
Chamberlain, Sir Austen,
175. 301, 431, 495
Chand, G., “ India’s Teeming
Millions ” (ig39). 57
Charka, 318, 514-15
Chartered Bank of India,
Australia and China, 142,

171

Chartism, 482-3
Chatterton, Sir A., 53
Chauri Chaura, 313, 465
Chelmsford, Lord, 1500., 346
Chetwode, Sir P., 480-1
Child Labour, 54, 81, 356,
360, 362

China, 17, 27-fl, 62, 108, 141,
197, 208, 269, 477, 48°
Chinese Revolution and India,
485, 487, 488

Chirol, Sir V., 151

“ Indian Unrest ” (1910),
261

“ India " (1926), 304
Chitral, 477

Chudgar, P. L., " Indian

Princes under British
Protection ” (1929), 399-
400

Churchill, W. S., 258-9,

439. 483-4. 496-7
Clemenceau, 486
Clive, 33, 40. in-12, 113
Clouston, Dr. D., 53
Coal, output, 77
resources, 43
Coke, Lt.-Col., 407
Colonial Empires, Area and
Population, 18

Commerce and Industry
Dept., 135, 15*. r56, 157
Communal Question, 225,
275. 303-4. 404-23
Communal electorates, 409-13
Communist Party of India,
312, 344. 372-3. 375-8i,
383. 465, 472, 501
Companies, registered in
India, 160

Congress Socialist Party,
383, 456, 472

Constituent Assembly, 14,
23. 457, 534

Constitution of 1919, 412,
433-4, 444

Constitution of 1935, 22-3,
173-6, 410-11, 424, 434,
440-54, 496-7

Co-operation, Agricultural,
243-4 „ V

Cornwallis, Lord, 114, 116,
123-4, 209, 211
Cotton

British cotton exports to
India, 99, 126, 146
Indian cotton industry,
125-6, 163, 166, 168-9,
276

Profits, 158, 356-8
Rationalisation, 358
Raw cotton exports, 13*>
187

Cotton, Sir Arthur, “ Public
Works in India ” (1854),
194

Cotton, Sir Henry, 127
Councils Act (1861), 134, 428
Councils Act (1892), 428
Cow worship, 6o, 292, 417
Cranbrook, Lord, 427
Criminal Law Amendment
Act (1932), 34
Cromer, Lord, 48

“ Ancient and Modern

Imperialism ” (1910)

426, 495

Cultivated area, 192-3, 237
Cunningham, W.f “ Growl*
of English Commerce an*
Industry in Modem

Times ” (1882). 117-18

INDEX

Currency, 136, 159, 161
Act (1927), 320
Commission (1926), 502
Curtis, L., jo8n.

Curzon, Lord, 20, 4 7, 48, 133,
I35p 151. 158, 289, 301,
431. 475.478, 495

Dacca, 67, 127
Dalhousie, Lord, Gov.-
General, 138-9, 393, 477
Dange, S. A., 373, 376, 381,

458

Darling, M. L., " The Punjab
Peasant in Prosperity and
Debt" (1925), 39, 229-
30. 238

11 Rusticus Loquitur H
(1930), 230

" Wisdom and Waste in a
Punjab Village" (1934),

230, 243

Das, C. R., 302, 306, 311, 314,
318-20, 370

Das, R. K., "The Industrial
Efficiency of India "
(1930), 19 1

“ The Labour Movement
in India " (1923), 367
Death rate, 57-8, 81
Debt, Public, 139-41

Congress Resolution {1929),
5°5n-

Deccan Riots Commission
(1875), 226, 276
Deccan Agriculturists' Relief
Act (1879), 227
Deccan Agriculturists’ Relief
Act, Commission on
(1892), 235-6

Declaration of Independence,
American, n

Defence of India Act (1914),
298

Defence of India Ordinance
(1939), 12

Deficiency Diseases Enquiry,
53

De -industrialisation ,76, 164-5
Delhi Manifesto (1929),
325-6

Delhi War Conference (1917),

299

Denmark, 198

Deportation without trial,
296-7

"Depressed classes", 261-3,
342

Desai, A. R., 398
Desai, M. G., 378
Diehards and India, 482,
494-5, 496, 497-8
Digby, W., " Prosperous

British India " (1902),
47. 48, 132
Diphtheria, 80
Dinagepore, 203
Disraeli, 32
Doctors, 81

Dominion Status, 325, 326,
432, 434-40

" Drain ” from India to
Britain, stt Tribute
Dufferin, Lord, 281-3, 289,
495

Dutt, R. C., " Economic
- History of India under
British Rule ” (1901) and
" Economic History of
India in the Victorian
Age " (1903), io6n., 287
Dyarchy, 301, 433~4. 495
Dyer, General, 304

Ecclesiastical affairs, 452
Economic crisis, 1929-32,
effects in India, 162
Edib, Halida, " Inside India ”
(1937), 418-19

Education, 78, 269, 271-2,
296, 469

Egypt, 18, 105, 197, 476
Eire, 18
Electorate, 452
Elections, Provincial (1937)
415-16, 458-63
Elections, Provincial, results,

461

Electricity, output, 7 7
Ellis, Sir E., 477-8
Eiphinstone, Lord, 389
Emerson, G., "Voiceless
India " (1931), 59, 196
Emerson, R. W., 307
Engels, g3, g4, gj, 104-5,
4«3

Englishman, 31a
Esher Report (1920), 479
Europeans in India, 389, 445,
452

Exchange Banks, 142, 171
Expectation of life, in India
and England, 57
External Capital Committee's
Report, 172

" Extremists", 290-8, 416

Factories Acts, 8r, i5on.,
166, 348-9, 359-6i
Faizpur Congress (1936), 247,
456, 457-8, 523
Famine Commission (1880) ,
132-3, 181, 225, 277
Code rations, 52
Famines, 62, 115, 132
Farid pur, 67, 231
Fascism and India, 41511.
Federal Constitution, 400-1,
441-4, 457, 470-3
suspended (1939), 12
Fells, H. J., 266n.

Finance and Currency Com¬
mission {1927), 161
Finlaison, 64

Fiscal Commissi (m (1922),
155, 502

Food crops and non-food
crops, 131, 186-7
grains exported, 131-2
Food supplies, 68-72
Forced labour, 399

539

Foreign Relations Act (1932),
34

" Forward Block ”, 473-5
Fox, Chas., India Bill (1783),
99, 123, 482
Fox, C. S., 44

France, 17, 18, 42, 45, 65,
476, 477

Franchise Committee {1931),
348

Francis, Philip, 123
Fraser, L., " India under
Curzon and After ”, 360
French Revolution, and India,
123, 270

Fullerton, W., " A View of
the English Interests in
India " (1787), 116

Gandhi, M. K.

Characterisation, 307, 323,
5i7

Crusade against untoncha-
bility, 262, 342
Dictator of National Con¬
gress, 311, 473
Disciple of Gokhale, 285
Hindu revivalism, 416-17
Historical record, 299-
300, 303-44, 455, 463-
5, 472-4, 517
Landlords, support of, 516
Machinery, hostility to, 513
Poverty, idealisation of, 513
Princes, support of, 401-2
Property right, support of,
5M

Provincial Ministries, policy
On, 463, 464-5
Resignation from Congress
(1934), 344
Social theory, 512-17
Socialism, opposition to,
3M, 5M, 524

War of 1914-18, support of,
2gg-3oo

Warning against " red
ruin ”, 524

Garhwali soldiers, 332-3,
465

Gaya Peasants’ Congress
(1939), 248

Germany, 17, 44, 45, 65, 66,

148, 197, 198, 405

Geological Survey of India,
44, 45

Ghadr movement, 300
Ghaffar Khan, Abdul, 4x4
Ghate, S. V., 377, 381
Ghose, A., 290, 416
Ghosh, K., 377
Gladstone, W. E., 285, 423
Giri, V. V., 370, 382
Gimi Kamgar Union (Bom-
bay), 322, 374
Goa, 19

Gokhale, G. K., 285, 289-go,
296, 477, 5o8n.

Gold, drain from India (1931-
7), 162, 237

Goswami, D.p 378

540

INDEX

Goswami, T. C.f 172
Government of India Amend¬
ing Act, 1939, 12
Graham, Sir J., 425
Graham, Col., 53
Grigg, Sir J., 47, ji, 359
Guntur No Tax Movement
(1922), 313, 316
Gwynn, J. T., 395

Haig, Sir H., 340-1
Hailey, Lord, 524
Hailey Report (African Sur¬
vey), 78

Hallsworth, J., 350
Hardie, Keir, “ India *' (1909),
345

Hardinge, Lord, 133
Hargreaves, 117, 119
Harijan campaign, 342
Haripura Congress (1938),
402-3, 414-15. 456. 470-
I, 488-9

Hastings, Warren, 33, 99,
115, 125, 271

Health, 19, 53, 39, 60, 79,
80, 469

Heber, Bishop, “ Memoirs
and Correspondence "
(1830), 203-4
Hewett, Sir John, 151
Hindu Mahasabha, 413,
417

Hindu revival, 291-4,416-17,
510-16

Hindustani, 265-6
Hoare, Sir Samuel, 175, 340,
437-8

Holdemess, Sir T., 11 Peoples
and Problems of India *'
(igri), 188-9

Holland, r7, 18, 19, 65, 105
Holland, Sir Thomas, “The
Mineral Resources of
India " (1908), 42, 66
President Indian Industrial
Commission, 153
Home Rule for India League,
300

Hongkong and Shanghai
Banking Corporation,
142, 171

Hope, Sir T., 227
Horne, E. A., " Political

System of British India ”,
134

Hospital beds, 38, 80
Housing, 34-6, 362-4
Howard, H. E., “ India and
the Gold Standard "
(1911), 143
Howrah, 363-4
Huda, S., 378
Hume, A. O., 279-84, 407
Hunter, Sir Win,, “ Imperial
Gazeteer of India ”, 91
Hutchinson, L., 375
Hyderabad, 129, 391

Ilbert, Sir C.p 477
Illiteracy, 78

Imperial Bank of India. See
“ Banks "

Imperial Chemical Industries
(India), 503

Imperial Preference, 157-8
Imperialism, India as pivot,
17-21

Income, Indian national, esti¬
mates, 47-51

Indebtedness, 219, 224-31,
355

trebling of. 1931-7, 238
Independence Day, 326
Independence League, 322
India League Delegation
Report “ Condition of
India ” (1933), 341
Indian Association (1875), 278
Indian Christians, 445, 452-5
Indian Christians’ Conference,
410-11

Indian Science Association,
.5*7

Indigo Commission (1860),

131

Industrial Census (19 11 and
1921), 76, 150, 348
Industrial Commission Re¬
port (1918), 40, 42, 56,
151, 502

Industrial decline, 76, 186
Industrial disputes, stat¬
istics, 372

Industrial Planning Confer¬
ence (1931), 5l8-i9
Industrial production index,
67-8, 76

Industrial revolution and
India, 99, 116-20
Industrial workers, numbers,
164-6, 347-9

Industrialisation, failure of,
30, 76. 135. 149-67,

503-4, 517-22, 533
Infantile death rate, 58, 352
Influenza epidemic, 1918, 62,
300

International Peace Cam¬
paign, 488
Iraq, 18

Ireland, 340, 404
Iron ore, 44-5

Irrigation, 42, 84, 194-7, *43
Irwin, Lord, 375, 435
Irwin-Gandhi Agreement,
337-9

Italy, i8, 45

Jail Code rations, 52
Jamait-ul -Ulema, 411
Jamnagar, 398
Jamshedpur, 263
Japan, 18, 45, 145-6, 157,
197. 356, 476, 45o, 485
Jenks, L. H., “ The Migration
of British Capital to
1875”, 141
Jevona, H. S., 245
Jhabwalla, S. H., 317
Jinnah, M. A., 299, 420
Joglekar, K. N., 377, 381

Johnston, T., 356
Josh, S. S., 378
Joshi, N. M., 220, 370, 371,
374, 375, 382
Joynson- Hicks, W., 268
Jute, 131, 237
profits, 159, 356, 358
rationalisation, 358

Kadau, L. R., 378
Kali, 292

Kamgar Hitvarthak Sabha,
366

Karachi Congress (1931),
338-9

Kara Kalpak Republic, 83
Kashmir, 391, 406
Kathiawar, 391, 399
Kazakhstan, 83, 87
Keith, Prof. A. B., “A Con¬
stitutional History of
India " (1936), 454
Khadi, 515

Khaksar movement, 413-14
Khan, Sir Syed Ahmed, 408
Khilafat movement, 306, 412,
487

King’s Message to India
(i939), 12

Kirghiz Republic, 83
Kisan Sabha, 247-9
Knowles, L. C. A., “The
Economic Development
of the British Overseas
Empire ” (1924), 63, log,

131, 163-4

Konkan village enquiry, igo
Kuczynski, Dr. R. R., 65-
fin., 70-1

Kumarappa, J. C., 512-13
Labour

Whitley Commission, 376,
502

Whitley Commission,

Report, 54-5 ,63,2 20,
353-5

Labour conditions. See
Working class

Labour electoral representa¬
tion, 445, 452

Labour legislation, 81, 359-
62

Labour Monthly , 257n., 264m
Lahore Congress (1929), 326,
505

Lai, Cbaman, 382
Lancashire and India, 130,
15s, 482, 503

Land Revenue, 202-6, 232,
237

Language question, 264-7
Laski, H., g2
Lassalle, 424
Lawa, 391

Lawrence, Sir H., 273
League against Imperialism,
322, 488

League of Nations and India,
434, 436, 486-7
Lecky, W. E. H.f 258

INDEX

541

Lenin, on India, 105, 297,
345-6

Lewis, Sir G. C.p in
Liberal Federation, 296, 302,

413

Lilley, W. S., 41 India and
its Problems ”, 132
Linlithgow, Lord, 419, 437
Lloyd, Lord, 3160.

Lloyd George, 438
Lokhande, N. M., 364-5
Local Self-Government Acts,
428

Lucknow Congress (1936),
455, 528m

Lucknow Congress-Moslem
League Pact (1916), 300-
i, 41m., 414
Lyall, Sir A., 272m, 284
Lytton, Lord, 275, 279-80,
394. 427-8

Macaulay, T. B., 271, 425,
493-4°-

MacDonald, J. R., 135, 268,
336, 338

44 The Awakening of
India 44 (1910), 345,407-8
MacDougall, A. P., 198
McHarrison, Lt.-Col., R.,
53-4

Maclagan, Sir E., 224-5
Madras

Agriculture, 189, 212-15,
217, 220, 244

Agriculturists’ Debt Relief
Act, 466-7

Congress Ministry, 464-9
Department of Industry,

151

Education, 469
Electoral Representation,
412, 461
Health, 469
Historical, 106, 212-15
Infantile Death Rate, 58
Labour Conditions, 354-5
Labour Department, 367-9
Non-Brahmin movement,
412

Ryotwari Settlement,
212-15
Wages, 354

Madras Congress (1927), 322
Mahmud, Dr. S., 341
Maharashtra, 290
Majid, A., 377
Malabar, 190, 309
Malaviya, M. M., 310
Malay States, 17
Malcolm, Sir John, 394
Malnutrition, 53, sg
Malthus, 61-3
Managing agents, 168-9
Manchuria, 18
Manganese, 43
Manu, Code of, 202
Mann, Dr. H H.f 44 Land
and Labour in a Deccan
Village ” (igi7and 1921),
189, 222-4

Manipur, 391
Marx

British East India Com¬
pany, 98

British labour movement
and colonial question, 483
British rule in India, 92-
106, 176, 194, 272, 273
caste, 263

destruction of old society,
97, g 8-102
future of India, 104
irrigation, 194
land revenue, 100
overpopulation theories, 61
primitive accumulation of
capital, 1 18

primitive communism in
India, 94

Princes (Indian States), 392
regenerating rile of Brit¬
ish rule in India, 102-4
Trade of Britain and India,
99

Tribute from India to
Britain, 100

Marxism and India, 386, 527,
530

Massey, W. N., 142
Maternal mortality, 58
Martin, Montgomery, 127,
129-30

44 Indian Empire ”, 228,

230, 246-7
May Day, 373

Mayo, Katherine, 44 Mother
India ”, 56-7, 500
Megaw, Sir John, 53
Mehta, Sir P., 288
Mercantile Bank of India, 171
Mercantile capitalism and
India, 106-16

Meerut Trial, 324-5, 376-81,
465

Mesopotamia, 299, 477
Meston, Sir J., 299
Metcalfe, Lord, 274
Middle Eastern Empire, 17,
480, 481
Midnapur, 210

Military expenditure, 45,
479-80
Milk, 6g

Mill J. S., ill, 425
Milner, Lord, 495
Miners, 349, 355-6
Mines Act (1935), 361
Minto, Lord, 409, 430, 495
Mirajkar, S. S., 377, 381
Mitra, R. R., 378
Mogul Empire, 107, 202
Mohani, H., 312
Momins, 420-1
Moneylenders, 228-30, 246-7
Montagu Declaration (1917),
301, 431-2

Montagu-Chelmsford Re¬
port, 134, 154, 183, 267,
301, 4 1 in., 414, 429, 430,
432, 434
Reforms, 301-3

Moplah rebellion, 309, 465
Moreland, W. H., “ India at
the Death of Akbar M
(1920), 40-410., 64
41 Peasants, Landholders
and the State ” (1922),
206

Morison, J. L., 274
Morley, Lord, 152, 297, 409,
426, 429-30, 495
Morley-Minto Reforms, 134,
297, 410. 426, 429-31
Morocco, 18
Mosoow, 80

Moslem League, 301, 318,
407-8, 412-13, 420-1
Moslems, 300-1, 303-4, 404-
22, 445,452
Mosley, Sir O., 495m
Mukerjee, Prof. R., 522-3
44 Food Planning for 400
Millions *’ (1938), 52m,
67-8, 69, 187, 191-2
44 Land Problems of India M
(i933). 1 8 1-2, 202, 205,
206

Mukherjee, Dr. H. C., 41 in.
Mukharji, U. N., 378
Munro, SirT., 212-14, 218
Murshidabad, 40, 114, 127
Mussolini, 340

Mymensingh, Maharajah of,
212

Mysore, 391, 402

Nagpur Empress Mills,

357-8, 364

Napier, Sir Charles, 477
Napoleon, 476
Naoroji, D., 288, 2g6

44 Poverty and Un-Brit¬
ish Rule in India ”
(1876), 47, 48

Nash, V., “ The Great

Famine M {1900), 228
National Bank of India, 142,

171

National Conference (1883),
279

National Congress
agrarian policy, 459, 466-7,

523

election campaign (1937),
456-63

Election Manifesto (1936),
27, 458-60
flag, 326

foreign policy, 485-9
foundation. 277-85
Fundamental Rights De¬
claration (i93i),339, 414,
505

history (1885-1934), 2 77“
345

history (1934-39), 455-75
illegal {1932-4), 340-4
independence aim, 322,
326, 534

membership, 288, 318, 455,
456

organisation, 535

542

INDEX

National Congress

Princes, policy towards,
4ai-3

war of 1914-18, policy,
298-302

war of 1939, policy, 12-14,
488-9

National Volunteer Move¬
ment, 310
Nawanagar, 400
Nehru, J., 201, 322, 324-5*
339, 419, 435-6, 473,
488

characterisation by Gandhi,
325

on socialism and nation¬
alism, 523-6, 5280,

“Autobiography” (1936).
294-5. 309, 314-15, 327-
8, 362-3, 396, 413, 4i7,
418, 5080.

" India and the World ”
(1936), 266

“ Where are We? ” (1939),
473 ,

Nehru, M., 294-3, 306, 314,
318, 325, 326

Nehru Report (1928), 323,

324, 4i4

Nevinson, H. W., 255-6
Newspapers, 79
New Zealand, 18
Niemeyer Award, 453
Nimbkar, R. S., 125, 378,
381

Non-Brahmin movement, 412,
462

Non-Coope ration, 306-18,
326-43

Non-violence, 283, 306-8,

311, 317-18, 329-30,

333, 343, 466, 471, 534-5
North, Lord, India Act
(1773), 148

North-west Frontier Pro¬
vince, 344, 414, 420, 461,
464, 477

O’Dwvkr, Sir M., 497-8
Olivier, Lord, 408
Opium, Government mono¬
poly, 33i, 468
Orissa, 44, 461, 464
Ottawa Agreement, 157
Oudh, 393

Overpopulation, theories, 60-
73, 129

Paish, Sir George, 143, 159
Pal, B. C., 290
Palestine, 404
Parnell, 493
Parulekar, S. V., 351-2
Pascoe, Sir Edwin, 43
Pasteur Institute, 53
Patel, V., 342a., 512
Pathans, 421

Pearse, Amo, " The Cotton
Industry of India ”, 158
Peasant movement. See
Kisan Sabha

Pentland, Lord, 299
People’s Bank of India, 171
Peshawar (1930), 332
Perin, L. P., 44, 477, 485
Perris, G. H., “ The In¬

dustrial History of
Modem England ”, 117
Persian Gulf, 17, 21
Philippines, 18

PilJai, P. P., “Economic
Conditions in India ”
{1925), 217
Pitt, W., 121

India Act (1784), 108,

123

Plantation system, 131, 219-
20, 356

Plassey, Battle of, 20, 117,
119

Police, 447-8, 451
Secret, 279-81, 448, 451
Poona, 189

Poona Pact (1932) , 342
Population of India, 19, 27
rate of increase, 4-5
density, 66-7
Populists, 511
Ports Act (1931), 361
Portugal, 17, 18, ig, 105
Prasad, H., 378
Prasad, Rajendra, 473
Press Act (1878), 279, 296 \
(1910), 34

Press censorship, 34-5, 396-7
statistics, 79
Prices, Index, 47-g
Primary education, 78
Princes, 212, 273, 274-5,
391-404

and Federation, 400-1,
441-5

Chamber of, 391, 400
Conference, 401
Prisons, 52
Profits, 158-9, 356-9
Prohibition, 468
Public Safety Ordinance
(1929), 325, 376
Public Works, 100
Punjab, 189, 190, 214-15,
230, 244, 300, 304, 420,
460-1, 504
Purcell, A. A., 350

Quern's Proclamation (1858),
275,393.42 7

Rai, Lajpat, ago, sgg, 305,
314, 318, 370

Railwaymen, 349, 361, 366,
382, 385

Railways, 103, 138-42
rationalisation, 358
Rajputana, 391, 399
Ranade, M. G., 292
Ranga Iyer, S. C., “ India,
Peace or War ”, 395
Rao, Shiva, 376, 382
” The Industrial Worker in
India” (1939), 361, 363-
4. 385-6

Rao, V. K. V., “India’s
National Income ’’ (1939),
47

Rationalisation, 353, 358
Red Sea, 21

Red Shirts (N.W. Frontier
Province), 344, 414
Reserve Bank. See Banks
Revolt of 1857, 108, 140, 274,

393

Rice yields, 197, igg
Ripon, Lord, 495
Rosebery, Lord, gi
Rothermere, Lord, 268, 498
Round Table . Conference
(1930-33), 33&-40, 394,
419

Rowlatt Acts (1919), 303
Rowlatt Committee (1917),
300

Roy, Ram Mohan, 177, 270,
274

Royal Titles Act (1876), 273,

394

Rupee exchange. See Cur¬
rency

Russia (Tsarist), 17, 65, 74-
81, 178, 404-3. 476,
477

Russian Revolution and
India, 270, 296, 301,
429, 43i

Ryotwari system, 213, 214

Sabarmati Pact (1926), 320
Saklatvala, S., 373
Salisbury, Lord, 33, 152, 428,
494

Salt Law, 130-1
Sanatanists, 416-17
Santal Rebellion (1855), 247
Sapru, T. B., 325
Saha, Prof., 517
Sayer, W., 147, 241
Scrafton, L., 113
Seditious Meetings Act (1907),
296

Seeley, J. R., “ Expansion of
England ” (1883), 124,
253, 254, 482
Seghal, K. N., 378
Shah and Khambata,
“Wealth and Taxable
Capacity of India
(1924), 47, 49, a,, ms
Shankar, G., 378
Sharma, S., 234
Sheridan, R. B., 123
Shias, 420

Shirras, G. F.p “ Poverty and
Kindred Economic I
ierns in India ” (1932).

“ The Science of Public
Finance ” (1924), 47
Sholapur, 335
Siam, 477, 480
Sikh Wars, 140
Sikhs, 420, 445, 45a
Sime, J. F., 356
Simla Hill States, 391

INDEX

543

Simon Commission, 321—22
Report, 48-9, 183-4,

215, 22i, 224, 231, 255,
260-1, 264, 265, 389,
406, 41m., 432, 433-4
Simons town, 480
Sind, 461, 464
Singapore, 17, 21, 480, 481
Singh, D., 377
Sinha, S. P., 299
Slater, Dr, Gilbert, 189
Slavery, 219, 273, 399
Sleeman, Sir W., 393
Smallpox, 80-1
Smith, Adam, 423; on India,
33, 121-2

Smith, Vincent, “Oxford
History of India " (1919),

. 259

Socialism, 372-6, 524-32
Socialist (Bombay), 373
Saviets, 246m, 528
Spain, 17, 44, 105, 488
Spark (Bombay), 378
Special Marriage Act (1872),
5080.

Spratt, P„ 377, 381
States, Indian. See Princes
People’s Conference, 397-
8, 401

Protection Act (1934), 34,
397

Statesman, 310, 335
Statesman (Calcutta), 46
Steel

ancient industry, 128-9
output, 77, 163, 506
protection, 155, 157, 320-1
resources, 43-3
workers, 506

Strachey, Sir John, “ India M
(1888), 254, 407
Strikes. See Working Class
Subramanian, N. S., “ Study
of a South Indian Vil¬
lage ” (1936), 233
Suez Canal, 21, 480
Sunderland, J. T., “ India in
Bondage " (1929), 407
Surat, 106, 127
Surat Congress (1907), 296
Suttee, 273

“ Swadeshi ”, 296, 429
Swaraj, 296, 307-8, 312, 505,
„ 533-4

Swaraj Party, 155— <S, 318-20,
524

Sweden, 44
Switzerland, 45, 442
Sykes, Col., 136

Tagore, Rabindranath, 73
Tajikistan, 83-5, 87
Tariffs, 125-6, 132, 155, 157-

8, 503-4

Tariff Board, 44, 155, 157-8
Tata Iron and Steel Co., i6x,

506

Tavernier, “ Travels in
India ”, 41

Taxation, 231, 359-400

Tea

exports, 187

plantation workers' con¬
ditions, 356
profits, 358-9
Technical education, 79
Temple, Sir R., 21 1
Textile Workers Federation,
Ali-Iodia, 385
Thakurdas, Sir P., 161
Thengdi, D. R., 377
Thomas, P. J., “ Popula¬
tion and Production "

_ (J935), 67-8

Thompson, E. and Garratt,
G. T., “ Rise and Ful¬
filment of British Rule in
India" (1934). 34, 204,
245

Thompson, G., " India and
the Colonies " (1838), 194
Thoreau, H. D.f 307
Thuggism, 273
Tibet, 477

Tilak, B. G., 290, 291-6,
300, 416, 486

Times Trade and Engineering,
Indian Supplement
(I939) . 241, 266n.

Times of India, 333
Tippera, 67
Tolstoy, 307

Toynbee, A., “ The Industrial
Revolution ", 116
Transport workers, 349, 385
Trade Agreement of India
and United Kingdom

(1935), 158

Trade Union Act (1926), 372
Trade Unionism, 364-86
Trade Union Congress, 370-1,
373-78, 381-2, 384-5
Trade Union Federation, 382
Trades Disputes Act (1929),
376 t
Travancore, 402
Trevelyan, Sir C. (evidence to
Parliamentary Enquiry,
1840), 127, 187

Tribute from India to Britain,
21, 33, 100, 112-14,

135-7, 148-9

Tripuri Congress (1939), 403,
456

Tuberculosis, 58
Turkey, 141, 301, 479, 485,
487

Turkmenistan, 82, 86-7
Typhus, 80

United Provinces
agriculture, 189, 214, 237,
244

Congress Ministry, 464-9
" depressed classes ”, 261
education, 469
electoral representation,
460-1
health, 469

labour conditions, 334
national movement, 456

National Agriculturist
Party, 460
Upper Chamber, 451
wages, 354

Universities in British India,
78-9

Untouchability, 261-3
United States of America, 11,
18, 44, ,65, 146, 197,

356. 442

War of Independence, 287-
8

U.S.S.R., 38, 61, 65, 73-88,
442, 506, 507, 518-20,
527-8

Usmani, S., 373, 377, 381
Uzbekistan, 83, 85-8

Village Poets' Conference,
234

Village Surveys
Deccan, 222-24
Faridpur, 231
Konkan, 190
Malabar, 190
Nerur, 233
N. Bihar, 218
Poona, 228
S. W. Birbhum, 227
Village system, 95-6
Visvesvaraya, Sir M.,
“ Planned Economy for
India" (1934), 148-9,
157, 173. 519
Vital statistics, 57
Voelcker, Dr. J. A., “ Report
on Indian Agriculture "
(1891), 200

Wadia, B. P., 368-g
Wadia and Joshi, “ The
Wealth of India ”
(1925), 47, 186

War of 1914-18, 11, 298-302,
478-9

War of 1939, 12-15, 489
Water power, 9, 45
Water supply, 55
Watson, Sir Alfred, 46
Watt, Sir George, “ Resources
of British India ” (1894),
43, 7i

Wedderburn, Sir W., “ Allan
Octavian Hume " (1913),
280-1, 383
Wellington, 271, 495
West Indies, 17
Westminster Statute, 436
Wheat yields, ig7, igg
Whitley Commission, see
I.ahoui

WiJJcocka, Sir W., 195-6

" Irrigation in Bengal ",
42

Williams, Rushbrook-, 394-5
“ What about India ? "
(1938), 269
Willingdon, Lord, 299
Wilson, H. H., “ History of
British India ”, 125
Wingate, Sir G., (1852), 247

544

INDEX

Workers’ and Peasants' Party,

321, 373, 383

Working Class

budgets, 52, 55, 354-5
conditions, 54-6, fir, 350-
64

housing, 54-5, 350-1, 352,
362-4

indebtedness, 355
labour legislation, 81, 359-
62

labour movement, 345-86
numbers, 346-9
strikes, 303, 367-8, 372,
374-5, 384, 467-8
strikes (statistics 192 x-
37), 372

wages, 54, 35<>-56

wages, agricultural work¬
ers’, 218

wages, average earnings,
354-5

wages, deductions, 355
wages, miners’, 355-6
wages, movement of (i860-

1938), 353

wages, plantation workers',

356

Wages, Payment of. Act

(1936). 381

See also Trade Unionism,
Socialism, Congress Soci¬
alist Party, Communist
Party

Workmen’s Compensation
Act (1934), 353-4, 38t

Women

position of, 56-7, 6o, 82,
459-60

women workers, 54, 350,

356; 469

expectation of life, 570.
electoral representation,
443, 452

World Peace Congress,
Brussels (1936), 488

Young, Hilton, Commission
on Indian Currency aod
Finance (1926), 161

Zemindars, 209-15, 317, 516
Zetland, Lord, 455
Zionism, 404

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "India Today"

See other formats